Because of You
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: HouseWilson slash fanfic. Spoilers for Que Será Será, and basically every episode before that. Wilson is mad at House about the forged prescriptions, and for a few other things as well, but mostly he’s worried. Rated M for language and just in case for la
1. Questions Unanswered

House/Wilson slash fanfic. Spoilers for Que Será Será, and basically every episode before that. Wilson is mad at House about the forged prescriptions, and for a few other things as well, but mostly he's worried. 

"You never thought of anyone else  
You just saw your pain  
And now I cry  
In the middle of the night  
For the same damn thing,"

House gave me an extra key last year, when I moved in and even after I left, he never asked for it back and I've kept it, for personal reasons and even though I've tried telling myself that I only keep it for _his_ safety, and only so I can look in on him when he's doing really badly, I know that's not the least bit true. I'm still in love with him and he knows it. When I finish with the detective, I speed over to his place, perfectly ready to yell at him, or kill him, or kick his ass, or worse. Then I open the door and step inside.

The TV is on so loud it covers up the door slamming. He doesn't even stir, but based on the number of empty beer bottles and the bright orange bottle of Vicodin on the table by the couch, I don't think an elephant crashing through the ceiling would wake him up. No matter how gentle I'd like to be, I'm still pissed. So, I walk to his side, lean over the couch, and shout in his face.

"HOUSE!" My voice carries across the apartment and he bolts upright, looking around confused.

"Hmmm," he mummers quietly, reaching for the prescription bottle. Luckily, I'm faster. "Whatever I did can't be _that_ bad can it?"

"Why the Hell did you do it?" I demand, slipping the pills into my pocket. House scratches his head.

"You're going to need to give me more of a clue than that. I'm not going to confesses to anything unless I already know that you know about it." When he looks around a bit, trying to get out of this I start feeling desperate.

"Maybe you should just start talking and I'll stop when it starts to sound familiar."

"Let's see, you know about the thermometer, the pills, ohh great. He found the box from the top of the book case didn't he?"

"No, at least, if he did, he didn't tell me about it," I say as our eyes lock and suddenly he starts to get up. It's not even a close race, and I have the bottles of morphine in my hands before he's even all the way off the couch. "I'm going to pretend I didn't see these, if you can pretend they were never here."

"How about a trade?" He asks, his eyes glancing at my waist.

"You can have the pills back when we finish talking," I offer, whishing that he wanted something else from me. House sits down, propping his legs up on the table.

"Come on, Jimmy, sit down, grab a beer. We're gonna be here for a while," House calls over his shoulder.

"You forged my signature on a prescription, more than once. Why would you do that?" House turns away from me, running his left hand over his face and hair. "Don't insult my intelligence on top of everything else. I could lose my license over this."

"You've got to be kidding me, Jimmy. Even if he can prove that you didn't write those, what is the worst he can do?"

"All he has to do is look into my history, talk to the wrong patient. There are plenty of things that could—Jesus House! How did you think I was going to react?"

"He's not going to do anything, just relax and ride it out. All you have to do is say you wrote those prescriptions and I get off. What's he gonna do, come after you for enabling me?" He reaches for my hand. I'm not even that mad about the prescriptions. As usual with him, there are a dozen other things that have me worried, mad or scared, but that I'm afraid to speak to him about.

"There were enough pills stashed around this place to…why did you need that many?" I sit down on the couch, but I'm not taking his hand. I won't. "You had to be planning something. What was it?" This time when he looks away, I know it's not an act. "I—how—I can't believe you."

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be me? To wake up in the morning unable to think about anything but how much pain you're in? To know that the only reason nobody's killed me is because I'm a cripple? To know that even your best friend can't stand you?"

"Here. Take your fucking pills. You can even have these. See how much I care!" I shout tossing the pills and the morphine onto the couch. Some of his rant was real and I know it but mostly he's playing up the guilt angle.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," he says dry swallowing way too many pills. "You didn't even try to tell me that you don't hate me."

"How many times are we going to have this argument—how the Hell do you do that?" House lets out a deep sigh, laying his head against my shoulder. "I don't hate you." I wrap my arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to me.

"What do you want me to say," he asks, lifting his head a little.

"The truth would be nice, for a change. I know it's not really your style when it comes to the personal stuff but this is me. We've known each other forever and I will walk out that door if you start in with your usual bullshit." House closes his eyes, wincing and clenching his teeth. "I'm standing up," I tell him but don't move. I know I can't leave him like this. I just have to get him talking. So, I let go, standing slowly. "I'm walking to the door. I've got my hand on the doorknob." As the words leave my mouth and my body follows along, tears stream down my face. "I'm opening the door…"

"Okay," he shouts at last. "Just give me a minute, okay? This isn't easy for me."

"And you think it's easy for me? The things I do for you." He reaches for me slowly, his hand going for the buttons on my shirt. "Do we have to talk about this right now, James? Come on," he says, as I brush his hand away. "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. I know you've been getting even less than I have. You must have missed it."

"What I want right now is for you to knock it off and just fucking talk to me." House gives me that look. The sad, pathetic one, not the angry look. This is what we call the 'have pity on me I'm a fucking cripple,' look. "Why did you need that many pills? Just tell me, please." House sighs again and I could almost swear I see a tear rolling down his cheek.

"Or you're gonna leave?" His voice is soft and sad and I can tell that this isn't an act.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I love you. I'm not going anywhere, but we need to talk.

"Fine," House sighs, staring straight ahead. "Fine."


	2. Cause and Effect

"Maybe there's a reason and could there be a plan

Or are we all just fools to think we'll understand," John Mellencamp

Warnings ECT: I would recommend reading my stories Casablanca and Too Much Rain, just because there is information in there that is mentioned in this story. Also forgive me for what I am about to do, but this story has a mind of its own and seems to be going in a direction I didn't want to take it in even without my approval. It is not I who controls the story but the story that is in control of me.

House says everything is cause and effect. It's easier for him that way, simplifying everything so he can rationalize it to death, until he can control everything. With him it's always about control, manipulation, power. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Nothing is that simple. People are complicated.

"I was in pain and I didn't want people to know. I didn't want you to know. I wrote the script so you wouldn't know."

"You wrote more than one, over more than a year. If it was just from when the Ketamine treatment wore off I wouldn't even care. This—I can't—why?" My heart is racing at a hundred miles an hour and my mind is even faster. I don't know what to think, or feel, let alone what I should say to him. There isn't some big reason for House being like this. He is just who he has always been. "You know that I will always," he cuts me off.

"Except when you won't. Besides, do you tell me about everything that happens to you? Don't answer that. This isn't about me forging your signature on prescription slips."

"It's not?" I try and act surprised but House knows me so well. He always knows what I'm thinking, sometimes even before I think it. I must be transparent right about now.

"You're here because I had—a lot of Vicodin stashed around here, and you think you need to be worried."

"A lot? Fifty is a lot. A hundred is a lot. You had—what it had to be close to a thousand. That's—that's. . ."

"But you're not mad about that. Not really. You're worried about me, aren't you Jimmy? Well don't be. I'm fine."

"No you're not. You're not even—there are only two reasons that anyone would need that many pills."

"I'm not selling them. I just need the pills around in case—for when you get like this and won't speak to me for a few weeks, won't fill out prescriptions."

"Why—how—I can't believe you think I would buy that. Even if you really did need to keep extra pills around, you don't need that many. Unless you plan on taking them."

"Of course I plan on taking them," he shouts, kicking the table away with his good leg. "I'm in pain!"

"You know that that's not what I meant. Stop dancing around it. What. Are. You. Planning?" House pulls himself up, grabbing the cane, and stumbles into the kitchen. I can hear him rooting around in the fridge, probably looking for beer. "Please, talk to me," I beg, walking to his side and putting my hand on his shoulder. He closes the fridge and leans back against me.

"Do we have to do this right now? It's been a long day and I'm completely out of beer."

"Knowing you there's more booze in this place somewhere. Sit down, I'll get it."

"I spent all of last night in a prison cell, all afternoon with a lawyer and it looks like you're going to be here for a while. Don't bother with the "good cop" routine, I'm not confessing to anything," he says but sits at the table all the same. I pour us each a glass from the bottle of vodka I find in the freezer and bring them over and sit next to him.

House grabs the glass and downs half of it in one sip, with a wince. I put my hand on his, squeezing it softly. He shoots me a look but then lowers his head. "I'm tired make it fast."

"You were like this before—you just hid it better."

"But you knew? Knock it off; I don't want to talk about this. Please," he begs.

"Remember what you said before about not having anyone? Well you're not the only one."

"Save the sob story for your next girlfriend. You can't trick me into opening up."

"It's not a trick. You and I—we don't have much—basically just each other. But you know all my secrets. You know everything about me, but I feel like there's something. You're hiding something from me and I just wish you trust me enough to tell me."

"It's not what you think," he explains, as he finishes his drink.

"What do I think?" I ask wondering if maybe there actually is a cause for all of House's behavior. Maybe there really is something in his past, something that made him like this.

"You think—if I tell you about—if I tell you something. You think you can save me from myself with the truth. You think it will answer all of your questions. All of this, of course, is assuming that there is a deep dark secret."

I've met his parents, House's dad might not love him but he didn't abuse him, he's not the type. Neither is his mom. But they moved around a lot and there were plenty of people around him when he was a kid, if there really is something he hasn't told me.

"You're the one who's always telling me about cause and effect. What's your cause?" I'm begging, reaching out to him, desperate for an answer, mostly because I don't think I can watch him do this to himself much longer. I love him, but God…

"I don't have one," he says quickly and then looks away, reaching blindly for my glass. "Are you gonna drink this? It wouldn't have mattered if I said yes. House just takes it, and chugs the whole thing. "Whoa." Then there's a long silence, before he stands up and limps to his bedroom. He doesn't ask me to join him, and when I get there he's all but passed out, still dressed, and sprawled across the bed.

"You can't sleep like that. At the least take off your shoes," I explain, doing it for him. I pull the shoes from his feet, without even a complaint or a moan. When I reach for his pants, however, it's a different story.

"Don't," he orders, sitting up and pushing me off of him. The blow catches me by surprise more than anything and lands me flat on my ass. "Jimmy? Are you okay?" he asks quickly. I don't think House knew it was me.

"You hit me."

"No. I wouldn't do that. I hit--," he stops catching himself. "Where are my pills?"

"You left them in the living room. Don't get up. I'll get them." He reaches out for me, one hand weak and limp with all the fingers stretched out. "I'll be right back." Then I realize he's not afraid because he thinks I'll leave. "There's nobody else here. I promise."

"Don't be stupid. Of course there isn't anybody here. I'm just tired. I was confused."

"You thought I was somebody else?" He won't even look at me now. He won't say anything either. I touched a nerve and he isn't going to tell me anything else tonight. "I'm going to sleep in the chair over there. Okay?" House just closes his eyes and grits his teeth. When I come back wit the pills he's changed into pajamas. After he chews a couple Vicodin he lays back and falls asleep.

I stay up all night, watching him, thinking, worrying, loving him. In the morning his eyes open slowly like the fluttering wings of a butterfly. He pulls his mouth open next, tongue clicking softly. His hand reaches up to wipe his eyes.

"I never said it was okay for you to stay," he says in a harsh whisper.

"It's late. We should get moving."

"It's Saturday," he tells me, yawing and closing his eyes again. All I can think is thank God. Thank god because I don't want to worry about him working today, I don't want to think about what might happen if he leaves the apartment like this.

"This isn't the first time," I remind him, not being nearly gentle enough, but I'm frustrated and I want an answer.

"If you only knew half of the things I've done, you'd realize forging your signature is nothing."

"You know that's not what I mean.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Yeah, actually I do. I've been up all night, so I know exactly what time it is. I found you last time, and you promised me you wouldn't do it again."

"Oh," he says quietly, "that." And then neither of us says anything for a few minutes. "I wasn't trying to kill myself."

"Yeah well the guy who pumped your stomach at the emergency room might have had something different to say about it."

"I took ten pills. At my weight it would take more than twice that many to make my heart stop for good."

"Do you know what ten would have done?"

"Exactly what I wanted them to do. Now stop."

"I'm afraid for you. I'm worried."

"Well then, by all means go ahead, push me right on over the edge, if it will calm your fears and quiet your worry."

"I just need to know whether or not I can leave you to go to work on Monday and not have to worry about what I'm gonna have to come back to."

"Seeing as the cops took all of my pills except for these I'd say you've got nothing to worry about. And that would be only if I was planning to kill myself, which I'm not."

"But you are keeping something from me. Something important."

"Jimmy don't," he says looking straight at me, and there's something in his eyes that I don't recognize fear, maybe desperation. But I do, because I love him and I've convinced myself that it's better to know the truth. Because it's killing me to see him like this. I get up from the chair and walk over, standing next to the bed. "What are you doing?" His voice is quick, panicked, uncalculated, scared.

I see what happens next as if I am standing beside myself, as if it's not me who does these things band the James Wilson I se is being cruel, hurtful and for no good reason. He takes his hands and presses them flatly against Gregory House's chest, straddling his waist, knees on either side of him, holding him down on the bed.

House is face looks angry, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed but he does nothing to stop his so-called friend and then the tears start rolling down his cheeks as he tries to turn his face away. "Please" he begs, "please," and suddenly, I'm back inside of myself and I see what I'm doing, what I'm about to do. He sees the change in me too and uses it to his advantage, to save himself.

"House brings his knees up between my legs and grabs his cane, limping off as I fall onto the bed, clutching my injured parts. The pain is excruciating but I'm trying as hard as I can not to care about that. I hear him in the kitchen, slamming cabinets, glasses clicking, and his voice cursing. When I can stand, I walk to the kitchen unable to even look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry," I mutter knowing it won't help. He holds up a full glass of something and takes more pills. He too, is unable to face me. "I don't know what happened back there. It was like I wasn't my self. It was like I was outside of my body and I could only watch as he—would you get mad at me please? Call me an idiot or tell me that I was myself and I can't just excuse my behavior like that. Just say something. Please. Anything."


	3. The Truth

"It's not  
What you thought  
When you first began it  
You got  
What you want  
Now you can hardly stand it though,  
By now you know," **Aimee Mann**

We sit there for a minute just staring and not saying anything. A minute passes, two, ten, half an hour, an hour, and then two hours of complete silence go by.

"Why did you do that?" House asks, finally, after about two hours of silence. I don't know what I was planning to do with him, or what I thought scaring him like that, hurting him like that was going to accomplish. I knew what was wrong with him, at least I had a fairly good idea anyway, but I put exactly the wrong kind of pressure on him anyway. I just knew that something was wrong and he wouldn't tell me. I had to know how much pain he was in, why he wouldn't tell me; I needed the truth.

"I don't know," I whisper. He looks up after a minute. House shifts his gaze to the floor. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.

"It's not what you think," he tells me for about the fifth time in two days. He lifts one of his knees to his chest, hugging it, reaching for the pill bottle.

"I don't think that's such a good idea." He laughs when I say that, but it's not a good sounding laugh. I'm really worried about him when he laughs like that.

"As of right now, I'd say your judgment sucks, so I don't give a fuck what you think about anything, especially this." I watch helplessly as he takes them, his whole body seems wobbly and he's not even trying to hide it from me anymore.

"I think I trigged something in you, a memory, of something that happened to you as a kid. I went about things in the wrong way, but—."

"You wanted the truth, needed it, would do anything to get it?" I nod. "Welcome to my world. It's not what you—I said that before I haven't I?"

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want too, but I think it might help." He nods slowly. "Do your parents know?"

"You can't tell them! You owe me that much after this morning," he says turning to me and speaking with actual power for the first time since I attacked him.

"I don't even talk to them, but—I won't say anything, ever." House looks at me suspiciously and then moves his chair closer to mine. "How old were you?"

"Don't talk. I can't do this if—if you keep on interrogating me. You've met my father. He's not the kind of guy who would give me lots of—attention. I was just a lonely kid, too smart for friends my own age, too obnoxious. When I was eleven we moved to a base in California. We were only there for eighteen months, I don't really remember where it was."

He stops, turning his head away, but then he sort of leans back against me, his head on my chest. I know he's lying about not knowing where they had lived, but I'm not going to push him any more. I want to hold him, kiss his head, tell him I love him, but he asked me not to talk and I'm not sure how he would respond to me touching him right now.

House reaches for my arm, pulling it around his body. My shirt is wet. He's crying. I lean forward to kiss his head but then stop. It's not a good idea. For a while, a long while, we just sit here. "This chair s not comfortable. If I'm gonna do this I should at least get to lie down or something."

I practically have to carry him to the couch, but then we sit down he seems better. He lies with his head against my chest. "This is better. I think it is anyway. I'm sorry I kicked you but I couldn't—I couldn't—I thought you—I didn't know what else to do." I nod, and feel even more like crap than I did before. "Tell me something so I know that you won't try that again."

"I'm not sure how much my word—my promise—is worth to you right now, but I swear on, my life, on everything that I won't do that, ever. I'm sorry." House gives me this look like he understands but right about now I'm not sure how much he could understand anything.

"There was this science teacher. A young guy, he realized that I was smarter than the other kids in my class, and he offered to give me some extra help, these tutoring sessions after school. He—at school, in a classroom with a couple of kids from the high school. But I was—well you know what I am. I uh—I wasn't…let's just say I wasn't getting along with the older kids, bug surprised and he offered to show me stuff, just him and me. God that was stupid. I just—I don't have to finish this story do I? Because if anything is gonna make me wanna—well I uh—stupid, stupid," he starts hitting his head with his hand. I can't let him keep doing that. I

"Stop that, you're going to hurt yourself, a lot. Please," I lean forward, kissing the top of his forehead, rubbing the back of his hand softly. He pulls away from me at first but then stops fighting. "I'm sorry. I'm not going to hurt you, just don't hit yourself, okay?"

"I don't think about him a lot, almost never, I almost never think about him. I never told—I mean. You can't tell anyone."

"It wasn't your fault. You were, what eleven? Twelve? People aren't supposed to do that kind of thing with kid. I mean, how many times did this happen?" House shrugs.

"About—do you remember the last time I—I wasn't trying to kill myself. But he came into the clinic for some stupid thing. He didn't even remember me, but I knew and it all just came back. All I wanted was to forget. I wanted it to stop."

"What did you say to him?" House looks away. "I'm sorry. I never, and you never told anybody?" He shakes his head. "How could your parents not know?"

"I was a jerk and a sullen, quiet, obnoxious, creep before I ever even met him. After he—there wasn't much of a difference. There. I told you. Happy now?" I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him, or do. I just. I wanted to help him but I think I made it a lot worse. I think I brought everything back.


	4. Trust Me

"You can wear a mask and paint your face  
You can call yourself the human race  
You can wear a collar and a tie  
One thing you cant hide  
Is when you're crippled inside," John Lennon

I think that if people knew about House, about what happened to him, then nobody would give him a hard time. Between the leg and the history of abuse, there's not a person in the world that would even look at him funny. But House doesn't want anyone to know. Not that I blame him. He's ashamed, and frankly I doubt that he wanted to tell.

In these cases everything is about trust, and House can't really trust me, not after what I did to him. I didn't earn his trust. He only told me what happened because I made him, and for a guy with trust issues that's a pretty big deal. I may have effectively ended our relationship. I'm not sure.

I do know that I've hurt him. It's been a few days. Things aren't any better, maybe a little worse, but mostly House is just hurting, all over, all through his should. I wish I knew how to help him. I wish I could make all of it go away, which is all he seems to want. I've been sleeping in a chair by his bed every night, mostly because I think he's scared. It's hard to know for sure. He refuses to talk about it so for now, there's not too much I can do for him.

I wanna tell him to talk to someone, but I know he won't. I'm just not equipped to handle something this big. I hate seeing him like this, especially considering the fact that it's my fault. House has been taking more pills than normal and every time I try to talk about it he tells me it's none of my buisness, or that it's my fault and therefore I can't be concerned. I've been following him home every night, forcing myself into the apartment, just so I can keep an eye on him,

The good news is that he isn't any worse—I don't think he is. But I'm worried. I'm scared, because ever since we met him, he's been trying to push me away. He thinks he doesn't deserve to be loved, to be cared about. I'm worried because between this, and the fight over the stolen prescription pad it just might happen. It's not that I want to; I've been fighting it forever. I've been trying so hard. I love him.

"If you're going to invite yourself in every night, you might as well make yourself useful. I'm hungry." He touches my hand as I walk past, grabs me.

"What are you doing?" I stop; don't say anything. "I'm sorry. I screwed up. What I did is unforgivable, but I'm not the only one. If I were to sit down and list all of the unforgivable things I've forgiven you for, it would take all night." He squeezes tighter, not quiet hurting me, just making sure I know he's still there.

"So I'm supposed to forget that you—that you—I'm supposed to just forget about it because I've been a jerk?"

"No. I don't expect you to forget it, or forgive me ever. But I am asking you to understand why I might do it." He lets go of my hand and shakes his head. I sit at his feet, kneeling, touching his fingers softly.

"I understand why—I mean—what you were thinking but—forget it. And stop doing that. I didn't mean—it's not—stop treating me like I'm made of glass." I move my hand up on his arm, squeezing it.

"Do you want me to beat you up? Or worse? Look at me. Are you really hungry, or are you just trying to get out of this conversation."

"What conversation. I told you I don't want to talk about it." I reach up to touch his face. House doesn't stop me, but it doesn't feel right. "Oh. You mean about—we already talked about that. I'm sorry. That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?" I think he means it, or he's about as a close to meaning it as possible.

He feels bad because he knows that most of my current problems are his fault. Then he reaches for me, not for my face, or hands, or arms, or even my waist. He grabs my tie and pulls. "I always wondered what these were for," he says, laughing. When House lets me go, I reach for his face, but stop, again. "I'm not afraid of you Jimmy. You haven't got the balls to go all the way through with that. In the moment I was scared but as soon as it was over, it was over."

"I like you. I love you. I need you and not just because you know all of the answers that nobody else knows. You're important to me. He rolls his eyes.

"I'm your project at best. Don't give me that look. If I wasn't like this…you wouldn't even bother with me."

"Are you kidding? If you were a healthy, normal person, I wouldn't be happier than you could ever imagine. It would be perfect." He stares at me, hard, cold, calculating for a while, as he tries to decide whether or not I'm lying to him. I'm not. He's the only one I've wanted, since the day we met. I love him, but I want him to be happy. I want us to be okay. I want him to be okay.

"If I talk to someone all that's going to happen is that I'll get diagnosed with PTSD. They put me on medication and I can't work until—who knows. If I can't do my job then I might as well not exist. And I really am hungry." House follows me as I enter the kitchen. The fridge is all but bare. A wedge of moldy cheese, two half empty bottles of beer, a splash of milk, cartons of Chinese food, and something I can't quiet identify.

"I'll go shopping tomorrow okay? I'm an oncologist not a miracle worker. You want pizza or Chinese?"

"I don't care. No. Pizza." I order and for a while we just sit there, watching each other. He gets the door, pays for the food and takes a slice but doesn't eat it. When I move my chair closer to his, he flinches. "Lift it next time. That noise is like fingernails on a chalk board." It's a bad lie but I'm not calling him on it. "I know what you're thinking but if I did find a shrink outside of the hospital it would come back and everyone would know. I can't have people knowing about this. I don't want you to know. I've seen the way you look at me now. You won't touch me anymore. It's like I'm—I dunno. But you treat me like a battered puppy. Like you think you'll make it worse or I'm going to come after you. Imagine that with Cuddy, Chase, Cameron, Foreman, nurses, techs, other doctors, lunchroom workers, the guy who sells coffee in the lobby—patients."

He's right, of course. But that doesn't change anything. He needs help. He needs someone to talk to. He needs—well that's it. I'm not sure if he'd go for it or not but it's worth a try. If I can get him to agree to this, then maybe I can help him. Maybe I can make amends for the damage I've done.

"House," I say after we've been sitting, not eating, not talking, for long enough to make the cheese congeal. "I've got an idea. What if I—what if you talk to me?" He looks up for a minute, and upon deciding that it's not a trick question, starts to seriously consider the offer. _Please,_ I think to myself, _please let me help him. Let me make it better._


	5. Things Unsaid

"If you want me, tell me now  
If I can be of any help, tell me how  
Let me love you like a friend  
everything is gonna come right in the end," Paul McCartney

"No, absolutely not. Bad idea. Very, very bad. Even if I wanted to talk about it, which I don't—speaking of which why do you try and bring it up every five minutes after I've told you repeatedly I don't want to talk about don't need to."

"Because you're lying. All right, I'll give you the one about not wanting to talk about it. It's painful and you're scared."

"I'm not scared. And you still haven't given me a single good reason why you think we need to talk about this."

"You're in full blown self-destruct mode. Right now I'm more afraid as to what you're going to do next than I've ever been. I'm scared I'm going to lose you."

"I already told you, Jimmy, I'm not going to kill myself so stop tearing your hair out over it.

"I don't think you will but the way you've been acting lately—you don't even bother with the helmet on your stupid bike anymore and—oh forget it. You don't care about how I feel." House gives me this look like I just stabbed his puppy.

"What do you want me to say?" House asks desperately, turning his eyes to the floor. "You're asking—you don't even know what you're asking. I—I need you to cut me some slack here. I'm fine."

"People who are fine don't go around stealing prescription pads. They don't swallow handfuls of pills every day. They don't leave people alone in exam rooms with thermometers stuck up their asses."

"They don't hold their best friend down on a bed and pretend that they're going to attack them either. I don't want to talk, got it?"

"What aren't you telling me?" I ask, reaching for his hand. When he looks at me, it's as if I can read House's mind. "You did tell your parents, didn't you?"

"Please don't do this." He sighs. "Okay. Fine. You want to know so bad? Yeah, I told him, and he," House stops, looking away, "and when he—"

"It's not your fault. It was never your fault, and if your dad told you different then he's even more of a jerk than you say he is." House shakes his head.

"No. He said—he thought I was making it up and he said that it was sick for me to lie like that. I can't," he says quietly. I wrap my arms around him as tight as possible, and he falls into my arms, crying.

"I believe you," I whisper, softly into his hear, rubbing his back. House looks up at me for a minute. He nods silently, laying his head back down on my shoulder. "I believe you."

"Why?" he asks, wiping his eyes.

"You have nothing to gain from lying to me about this and you wouldn't have reacted the way you did when I—if you hadn't have been…"

"Is it that obvious?" He starts to panic. I shake my head. "Okay. Hand me those, would you?" House takes the pills, pops the cap off the bottle, takes two out but doesn't sallow them. I watch as he runs his fingers over them, like a blind man. Then he puts them back. "I'm not stopping, so don't get any ideas," he tells me.

"I won't ask you to." Then after a minute or two passes, "are you gonna eat that?" I ask, pointing to the cold, gelatinous pizza. He doesn't have to say anything. I know even House won't eat this crap. "Do you want something else? Okay. Can I do anything else?"

"Yeah Shut up for a little while. I just want it to be quiet. I just need to think." House moves closer, leaning most of his weight against me, his head against my chest, his arms around my waist. After a while he starts to stand up, craving himself against the table, wincing. He takes two pills and hobbles to the bedroom. "Come on," he calls over his shoulders. I follow, watching as he sheds his clothes, sitting on the bed.

"Speaking of bad ideas. Look, I'll—I mean, it's not that I don't—you know how I feel, but right now I just don't think that we should."

"I don't want, _that_. I just—just want to have you close right now. I want to know that you're there. I want to feel you there."

"Okay." I kick my shoes off and climb onto the bed beside him. House lies down, resting his head between my shoulders. He closes his eyes but doesn't fall asleep. "I'm here and I'm not leaving. I promise." There's a quick nod from him and his breathing slows.

"I'm sorry about before—for not—for not telling you everything. I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize to me. You didn't do anything wrong, at least not in this case anyway. You were scared and I don't blame you for that." House nods his eyes opening again. He looks up at me for a minute, opens his mouth to speak but then stops.

"I'm not sure how to say this," he tells me after a minute. "I don't know—that's nice," he says as I run my hand through his hair. He doesn't have to say anything, because I know exactly what he is thinking, exactly what he wants to tell me.

_Thank you, for listening, for believing me, for staying here with me even though I've been a jerk. Thank you, for everything._ This is what he's thinking but can't, or doesn't know how to, say.

"You're welcome," I tell him and his eyes close again, comfortably, and he falls asleep.


	6. Getting Better

"Lean on me, when you're not strong  
And I'll be your friend  
I'll help you carry on  
For it won't be long  
'Til I'm gonna need  
Somebody to lean on," Bill Withers

I've gotten used to sleeping with House over the years. At first 'd wake up every time he shifted positions, or moved in his sleep. As time went by, my body adjusted to all his tossing and turning and I managed to start sleeping through the night. I still wake up though, whenever he gets up and climbs out of bed, which is what has just happened.

About a minute ago he got off the bed and started heading down the hall. I opened my eyes but still lay in the darkness, so I can watch him without getting caught. A lot of minutes go by. I can't hear him in the other room, which has me worried. I wait; maybe he's just in the bathroom. Maybe he went to get—something. Maybe, a million things. So I wait, and I wait, and I wait.

An hour goes by and still there's no noise. At least when he's thrashing around I know what he's doing. That's when it occurs to me, House might want to keep what he's doing a secret because he's up to something he doesn't want me to know about, because he thinks I won't approve. I know which floor boards squeak so I'm able to find House seated in the living room, with the phone by his side, holding a pad of paper, without making a sound.

"What are you doing?" I ask, sitting next to him on the couch. He shrugs. "What's that you wrote down?" Still nothing. "Can I see?" The pad drops to the floor._ Dad. _I stop reading, and look up at him.

"I thought that if I wrote it all out first I'd have a chance of sounding—I though it'd be easier, but I can't dial the phone."

"It's probably better that way. You can hardly talk to me about it and I—I'd believe you if you told me a 200 lb alligator ate your toes." The joke makes him laugh, which is all I wanted, and I push the phone out of his reach. "Even if he said he believed you, he wouldn't apologize for not listening when you were a kid. It wouldn't make you feel any better."

"I know," and then after a long pause, he adds, "a two hundred pound alligator? That's the best you could come up with?"

"Yeah well we can't all think on our feet as well as you can. You've got a natural talent for B.S. Anyway, I have go to the market; pick up a few things so I can make breakfast. I don't want you to stay here alone." He sighs, but doesn't complain.

"You might want to change, you look like you slept in that shirt," he calls over his shoulder, laughing.

"Funny thing," I mumble, following him, and digging through the half of a drawer he's allowed me to use for my clothes. "If you really want to, there's probably something we could come up with so you talk to your dad."

"I was just pissed—when I was a kid and he said those things it was like everything that happened was my fault. Yesterday, when you—after we talked, I realized it wasn't."

"I'm glad I could help you with that, even if it was partially rooted in pain. I think it'll help. I think," my thoughts are not coming out as coherently as I'd like them to be.

"You're a good friend," he says, squeezing my hand. "It's good to know you'd listen if I ever anted to talk…even though I don't."

"I got it, you don't wanna talk. Are you coming o the store or what?" The two of us shopping together, House and me, might look interesting to casual observer but it's really just me grabbing cheese, milk, bread, eggs, vegetables, and everything else we—by which I mean I—will need to be able to eat something other than peanut butter. When we get back to the apartment I start on breakfast, right away. House follows me into the kitchen. "Omelets okay?" I ask, getting the skillet ready. When he doesn't respond, I turn the burner off and look back at him. "You okay?"

"I have these dreams sometimes" he tells me honestly. "Nightmares, I guess." He lets out a long sigh.

"I think that's normal. I had this patient once. She'd been in remission for more than ten years; she told me that even then she still had the same dream every night. I think it happens to a lot of people."

"What happened to her?" His questions surprise me at first that is until I realize he's not asking out of concern for my patient. He wants to see what I'm going to say, because he already knows what happened to her and he's afraid he'll end up the same way. "Great. I feel _so_ _much_ better now."

"The point I was making is that the nightmares are normal. They might be horrible but they're over as soon as you wake up and I'll be there if you need to talk, or—if you need me." I watch him for a minute. It's been rough lately, for both of us. I think he needs a little time to absorb everything. "You think you could eat something?" He nods.

I figure that sandwiches are best, because it's late, and because I can make them quickly, without paying much attention, which is good because I get the feeling that House is about to open up. The whole nightmare thing was big, for him anyway. "Here," I say, setting the food on the table and he starts eating?

"What happened to the omelets?" he asks, mouth full of half chewed sandwich. A tomato seed flies from his mouth to my neck. "Opps."

"Nice. What are we six? It's almost 1:00. Plus I thought this would be easier to do if you wanted to keep talking, I say sitting down. And then, "only if you want to talk about it."

"Yeah, yeah—I get it. You're overcompensating for—you're overcompensating by being super nice. How long is that going to last by the way?"

"I'm not sure. Depends on how things go with the cop, with us, how you're feeling in a couple of weeks—other factors." House's head perks up at the end of the sentence.

"You're talking about sex, aren't you?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. It's obvious. Look—it's not that I—can we talk about something else? Good. Uh. This morning, when I got out of bed, I woke you up, I know because I did it on purpose. But you didn't follow me. Lately you've been on my—you've been trailing me like a bloodhound."

"At first I thought you were just going to the bathroom and then I wanted to give you some space."

"But you got up and came to what—check on me? It was a while, but you—changed your mind."

"I can hear you thrashing around the apartment when you look for something, or get food or—pills. But I didn't hear you and after about half an hour I started to think about what you might be doing that you didn't want me to know about and I started to worry."

"I already told, more than once. I am not going to—."

"I know and I believe you. But I still worry. I just. I don't know. Maybe I'm afraid of being alone. Of having to start over. I just love you so much."

"I love you too," he says after a long pause, "and I'm not going anywhere. We might not have everything figured out, but we will. It'll be okay."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"I was trying to be supportive asshole," he says with a quick smile, and a flash of his teeth.

"Now that's more like it," and just like that everything seems to be right on track for going back to normal. I think he's right. I think we're gonna be okay. WE just might make it after all.


	7. Apology

Okay, I'm not finished. I've got at least one more chapter left after this one.

"I thought you'd come through  
I thought you'd come clean  
you were the best thing, I should never have seen  
But you go to extremes  
you push me too far  
Then you keep going till you break my heart  
Yeah, you break my heart," The Pretenders

I've been concerned about House before; I've been disappointed in him, angry, mad, hurt, felt sorry for him; I've loved him, but I don't think I've ever been pissed off to the point of almost hating him, like I am right now. I keep on telling myself that no matter what is wrong with him, no mater what he says, no mater what happens, I won't forgive him, not until he makes things right.

I don't say anything when he drives past me on the bike, I won't even make eye contact. Not that it seems to mater; he shoots me that look, but won't apologize. Then he drives off and I'm stuck here, waiting for the stupid bus. By the time I get back to my place, shower, and get into bed, it's after midnight and yet I still can't fall asleep. I can't stop thinking about House.

I can sit in my office all day trying to convince myself otherwise, but I still care about him. I still love him. Finally, around 3:00, I manage to nod off. So it's only natural, that less than fifteen minutes later a loud knock on the door wakes me up. Damnit!

"I know it's you," I call as I make my way to the door. The knocking doesn't stop, doesn't get any less desperate. "What do you want?" I ask, not opening the door, not even unlocking it.

"I need you to let me in. I need help," he says quietly. I open the door and pull him inside, only to make him be quiet so the neighbors won't complain.

"I can't write you any more prescriptions, don't bother asking and you have to leave. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"I had that dream again," he tells me staring at the floor. "I'm—look this thing with Tritter, it's going to go away, but the other thing." He shakes his head.

"I thought you were doing better on that one. We talked about the dreams." He shrugs silently. "A lot of people have nightmares."

"But you weren't there, and you said you would be—I uh—I don't like to be alone." His voice trails off. House rubs his eyes. "But I'll go now."

"Sit on the couch. Relax. I don't know what to say. My car was towed. I can't treat my patients. I'm gonna get kicked out of this place in a week, maybe less, and you don't even care!"

"What am I supposed to do? If I tell the cops, I lose my license and go to prison. Do you know what that would be like? I'd—I can't. Please, don't turn against me to. You're all I've got."

"You can't do this to me! I'm mad, and I have every right to be mad. It's entirely within reason. Chances are if things keep going this way, we're both going to jail. I don't think I've ever been this angry with you and then you come over here with—how am I supposed to act?"

"I know I shouldn't have come here. I just couldn't—you—I need you. I need help, and you know how hard it is for me to say that, so don't make me do it again." He looks up helplessly. I cannot deal with this right now.

"Look, it's late. How about we get some sleep and talk about this in the morning? Okay? Because right now, you don't want to talk to me. You don't even want to be in the same room as me if you can manage that."

"I—um—yeah, okay," he says, lying back down awkwardly on the sofa. I know what he's doing, what he's trying to do. He wants to make me feel bad for him. It's working, of course, and I have to give in.

"Come on," I call jerking my head towards the bedroom. "If you wanna, I mean." He nods, following me and rubbing his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he says laying down and staring at the ceiling. "If it makes any difference, I'm sorry." It's not much, but it is something. I'm not just going to forgive him though, not that simply, not like this. I love him, truly I do, but what he did—I still don't believe it. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive him this time.

"Yeah, it helps, but—you didn't even think twice about it. You just—and now I might as well not bother showing up to work. I don't think I can forgive you this time."

"I guess we're even then, aren't we, Jimmy? Trust me on this one; what you did was a lot worse."

"I made one mistake, one time and I stopped, after that. You—what you did keeps on spiraling out of control. It's getting worse and worse. We're both screwed. Your whole team is going to get screwed." House shrugs closing his eyes.

"I thought you didn't have anything to say. You said you wanted to sleep, but you're the one who is keeping us up all night. I'm sorry. I don't think I can do better than that. I'm sorry." And then, he's asleep.

Watching him lying there like that, helpless, exposed, venerable, it's hard to stay mad at him when he looks so—innocent. It's almost enough to make me forgive him. I said almost, of course, which means that I haven't actually been able to do that quiet yet. I don't sleep, not that it matters I haven't got any work to do. Maybe I'll just stay here and spend the day fighting it out with House. Oh God I hate him. Oh god I love him. "You're staring," he says with a yawn. "Have I got something hanging from my nose?"

"That's not even remotely funny, and don't try again. I don't feel like laughing. We need to talk. Don't roll your eyes at me. What are you doing? Sit back down."

"I can't have this conversation on an empty stomach," he explains, reaching for his coat. I try to catch myself, but he sees the grimace. "I'm in pain. That's the answer to all of your questions."

"I have to keep lying for you, because what? Because this job is all you've got? That's about what you said, right? Have you once considered what my career means to me? Do you know what it would happen to me if I lost _my_ job?"

"Didn't we have this talk last night? And last week? And—well it just seems to me that you keep coming back to this."

"Because it's a big deal and you refuse to do anything about it. Tell me you feel bad. Tell me that you're going to fix things. Tell me you have a plan and then do it!"

"I feel bad about what happened. I want to fix this, do you think I like having you mad at me? I'm scared that you'll leave and I'm afraid because of the other thing…" He's got tears on his cheeks but then he turns around and wipes them away. I put my hand on his shoulder, to comfort him, but he jumps. "Don't," he grimaces. "I'm sorry."

"No," I say sitting next to him on the edge of the bed, "I'm sorry—for that anyway." House lifts his head slightly, and looks at me.

"I decided last night; I forgive you for—whatever you want to call what you did that day. I forgive you. I mean, we weren't even speaking lat night but you let me in here and did almost everything right, when I needed you and I realized that you only want what's best for me. You love me and you'll take care of me no matter what and you—you care about me. And I uh—decided that you deserve to be forgiven."

He did that on purpose. I mean maybe he really has forgiven me but the only reason he's telling me right now is to try and guilt me into forgiving him. He's trying to make me feel like shit, and its working. I know it's not all an act. At least he's not crying. If he starts to cry, I think that would push me over the edge. I wish I knew how I was supposed to deal with this.

"I'm glad, grateful even, that you were able to forgive me, especially considering what I did to you but I'm not at that point yet. I'm sorry. I just can't. Maybe you're a better person than I am." He rolls his eyes. "I know. I'm a jerk, I get it. I'm sorry. I just can't forgive you right now."


	8. The Betrayal

"I'm gonna let you down; I know that now  
Make you cry, I know I will  
Why should you believe I would never leave  
Or that I love you still  
For all the by and by, hard as we try, the bough breaks and the cradle falls  
For everything I do, that will tear at you, let me say I'm sorry now," Shawn Colvin

I can't deal with this anymore. I had to do something. House is out of control, and I've spent so much time being pissed off at him, and dealing with the other thing, I didn't see it. What he did to Cuddy, and his team is nothing, nothing new anyway, but hurting patients, it's just—it's the final straw.

I guess I'm just feeling guilty. I did the right thing. I know it. He needs help and Tritter wasn't going to stop until he put House in prison. I couldn't let that happen. I had to help him. He won't see it like that, though.

He never does, but I made the right choice. Of course, there can only be one reason for me to be obsessing like this. I'm feeling guilty. I feel like I betrayed him and I probably feel this way because, I have. I need to be alone. I need to think about how I'm going to tell him about Tritter, about everything.

"Are you gonna be alright for a few days?" I ask, leaning into his office. "I can't have you knocking on my door at 3:00 AM again. So I wanna know, are you—." House rubs his temples.

"I don't know. I can't focus, which means I can't really think, which means I can't think about—but the nightmares, tend to get worse when I'm stressed out."

"Is that why you're sitting here with half the lights shut off? Alright, let's go back to my place." He shrugs, not getting out of his chair. "Or not. We can go to yours. Is it really that bad?"

"YES!" he shouts, his first show of any real emotion since I walked in. He needs help, really, really needs it. I stand beside him, putting my arm around his shoulder but he doesn't seem to notice.

"If you think you can hold on I might be able to drive the bike. Or I could call us a cab and then help you outside…"

"Why don't you wanna be with me?" he asks, rolling his head back to look up at me. "That's why you were asking if I need you tonight, isn't it?"

"I just need a little time to myself. I need some time to think about a couple of things." Looking into his eyes, all I can see is the pain. What if his pain is real? What if I made the wrong choice? Could_ I be_ responsible for all of this? Dear God, what have I done? No. No, I made the right choice. I'm doing the right thing. This is the only way.

"You're lying. I'm not that out of it. I just can't tell what it is about. I can't do this. Go home. I'll be fine tonight," he says weakly, gritting his teeth.

"I can't leave you alone like this. You might do something—stupid."

"I'm in pain. I need my pills to take it away. You can't give them to me and Cuddy won't. What the hell do you expect me to do?" House shakes his head. I lean in to try and kiss him, softly, on the forehead, but he pulls away. "You're—something is very wrong. What did you do?"

"Let's not do this here. I call us a cab, get us back to your place and we can talk in private." Oh crap! I should have known he'd be able to read me. He knows. He always knows.

"Talk about what?" he asks in a calm and quiet voice, but still clearly angry. He's only calm because he hasn't figured everything out yet.

"You don't want to have this conversation in your office. I don't wanna talk about it here. If we go back to your place, I'll stand in the hall while you do whatever you need to do for the pain."

"Talk about what?" he asks again, his voice getting stronger now. House pushes my arm off of him. "Talk about what?" He stands, bracing himself against the desk, his knuckles whitening. "What did you do Jimmy? Tell me! Tell me what you did!"

"Calm down. I can't do this with you screaming in my ear." House swings at me with the cane. He misses, but not because he wanted to. He just missed me, because of the pain, because he can't calm down.

"Don't tell me to calm down! Tell me what you did, or get the Hell out of here! Actually, on second thought, do both. Tell me what you did and leave." I reach for him again but House won't let me. I stand in the corner silently.

"House." A minute goes by, a few (maybe ten) and then he looks back to me.

"You talked to Tritter didn't you? What did you tell him? Oh great! This is just perfect! I can't believe you would do this to me! Do you have any idea what's going to happen next? No." Suddenly his voice is soft, fragile. "No," he whispers, sinking back into the chair. "No."


	9. Anger

So this is probably the last chapter for a couple of days, but the story is far from over. Two weeks before we get to see a new House, what's up with that?! Everybody needs a place to rest  
Everybody wants to have a home  
Don't make no difference what nobody says  
Aint nobody like to be alone, "Bruce Springsteen 

The whole carbide back to his place, House doesn't say a word, except to tell the driver his address, and when we get there, he slams the door in my face. I wait a few minutes before coming in, because I said I would, and when I do enter he won't even look up to acknowledge my presence.

I sit next to him on the couch and just watch him for a while. He seems a bit calmer, which I know is actually a bad thing, but I'm not going to say anything about that right now. I told him I wouldn't talk about it.

"I hope you got a good price," he smirks at last, leaning back against the couch. Then he says something else, something I can't quiet hear and something I'm not sure I want to decipher.

"You're out of control. You have to know that. At least before, you were functioning. You can't even do that anymore. This is no way for anyone to live."

"I'd have been fine if it wasn't for—," he starts but I cut him off.

"You were slipping months ago. I saw it then but I didn't say anything because you have always had your cycles, but it's worse now than it's ever been. You're worse and it's not all because of—the other thing."

"So, that's your excuse for selling me out to the cops? Get out of here!"

"No. I'm not leaving, not until you talk to me. And I didn't sell you out. I told him you don't belong in jail, he's right. You need help. You need to stop, because I've seen where this behavior of yours can lead and I'm not going to let that happen again."

"I have a problem, but I was—it wasn't an issue until Tritter got involved. It wasn't. I was doing my job. I was saving lives. I can't do that if I can't think and I can't think if I can't focus and I can't focus without the pills."

"You committed a felony to get drugs and you don't see the problem with that?"

"It's only a crime if you get caught, and I only got caught because you're a crappy liar, and you wouldn't defend me."

"You got caught because you did something wrong and you didn't care who knew about it. You need help. I had to do something. I had to." House stands, slowly and stumbles out of the room. He doesn't look at me, doesn't say anything, just leaves.

I hear him in the kitchen, digging through the fridge, making lots of noise. The thought occurs to me that he's making far too much noise in there, but then he's quiet again and he returns, red-faced and carrying two bottles of beer.

"Here," he grumbles, dropping one of them onto the sofa beside me, not caring whether or not I get it. I reach for him again but he slaps my hand away. "Don't."

"I can't believe we need to be having this conversation and believe me, going to Tritter was my absolute last resort. I never wanted this, but you need more help than I can give you."

"And so your solution is to help the cops send me to prison? You're the one who always says that _I'm_ trying to push _you_ away to prove to myself that I can't be loved or whatever you think I'm trying to do and now you're the one who—get out."

"No. Look, I talked to Tritter I had to, but I didn't betray you. I'm not leaving. I love you."

"Out," he says, with all of the force he's capable of, which isn't much. He looks away. "Now!"

"House," I whisper, reaching for him one last time before giving up. Right now he doesn't care. He won't listen. He can't look at me, or won't. I'm not sure which one it is. I have to leave. It would hurt him more for me stay here and yell at him until he listens, until he understands, if it's possible for him to do so. "If it means anything. I love you and…" He won't let me finish.

"You have to go. I need some time to myself. I need—I need you to leave," he tells me, his voice cracking. I stand up and walk to the door, watching him over my shoulder the whole time.

"We're going to need to talk about this eventually. I didn't do what you think—but I won't—you can have your space for now, under one condition." House shoots me a dirty look, as if to say, _what right do you have to ask me to do anything?_ "I want you to promise me again.

I need to know that you aren't going to hurt yourself." He says nothing, staring at the floor. His body is shaking—just a little but I can see it—and it breaks my heart. "Everything will be okay," I promise/ "You just have to wait and see. I stand there, waiting for a response, a sigh that he understands what I said, but there's nothing. "I'm begging you. Please."

House shrugs a little bit. His eyes are wet. I want to race back over to the couch, rap my arms around him and never let go, but I don't. House runs his hand through his hair, pulling it a little. I watch, just standing there, knowing that I shouldn't but I can't leave him yet. He doesn't speak the words, but his lips are moving.

"Okay," he mouths, and then. "Please go. Please, just go," and so I do.


	10. One more Chance

Okay so I'm putting this chapter up in the hopes that it will help with my incurable writers block but I doubt that it will. House isn't on this week, which means that I have no idea where they are going to go and while I correctly predicted Cuddy's miscarriage, I don't know what House is going to do or how he is going to get out of this situation. So, I don't know what to have our boys do, until then. You very well might have to wait until after the next new episode.

"I've got Vicodin do you wanna come over

I know it's a long drive from Malibu

I got a pocket full of pills and not one lover

And I'm feeling so bad and so good

I don't know what to do…" Terra Naomi

House doesn't come by my place an hour after I leave or thee hours later, or at midnight or 4:00 am or 6:00 or anytime the next day, or the day after that. When I don't hear from him for a week, I start to grow more and more concerned. I've gotta go over there; I have to see him. I need to know if he's alright and I need to tell him everything. I have to explain, make him understand, convince him that this really is what's best but I'm scared.

I'm afraid he'll never speak to me or that he broke his promise or that he got hurt on accident or that he just plain gave up. If he believes that I really did betray him, if he thinks I'm helping Tritter send him to jail, if he thinks I've stopped loving him, abandoned him, the hurt of all that might be enough on it's own to completely break his heart, to kill him. I don't think I could live with myself if he died because of me, if _I _killed him.

I love Greg with all my heart and that was the reason I had to talk to Tritter. I had to make everything less bad. I needed to protect him. I just hope I did the right thing. I'm going over there, I have to. I've got my car back, my bank accounts, my job, prescriptions, everything.

The deal I made was that House has to go to rehab but I told Tritter it would take a while to get him there and that during the interval I had to convince him it's the right thing to do. So House gets one last bottle of pills. I stop by the hospital and fill the script, and then drive to 221 Baker, almost breaking the land speed record. Then I go and knock on the door, loudly.

There's a brief silence, followed by the sound of House moving across the room, slowly, agonizingly. I can actually hear how much pain he's in and when he looks through the peephole, he curses, but unlocks the door all the same. House opens the door just a crack.

"I've got something for you," I tell him, shaking the pill bottle. He reaches for it, but I'm not handing that over until I'm actually in the apartment. "Open the door and let me in." Once I'm inside he takes the bottle, running his fingers over it

"If it turns out this is a dream, I get to break that stupid promise when I wake up," he says, chewing on a handful of pills. After about five minutes, House looks back to me apologetically. "I'm sorry. That sounded better in my head. I can't sleep and I'm having these bizarre dreams. I see the pills on the counter and when I reach for them they disappear and it happens over and over."

"Are you still taking the morphine?" House shakes his head. "What, you run out?"

"It was too much—I couldn't think at all and it—I thought—I was scared I might never see you again."

"I told Tritter—I convinced him that you don't belong in prison, but you've gotta—I mean—I said you would—" House limps over, clapping a hand on top of my mouth and he wraps his other arm around my waist. I hold him and close my eyes, leaning in for a kiss.

"I don't want to talk about this right now," he says as we pull back. "I haven't felt this good in weeks and I haven't seen you in—too long." I let him keep kissing me, and I kiss back.

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" I ask about a million times, between the door and the bed. We make love, slowly, neither one of us saying much, but with passion and all the while, me whispering, "I love you. I love you. I love you." When we finish, House falls asleep and stays that way for a long time. I think about getting up, first thinking I should go to the kitchen and see if there's any food, and then after a couple of hours I feel a need to use the bathroom. I lay still as long as possible, rubbing his back, kissing his head, until finally I can't anymore and I have to get up.

I leave the door open so he can hear me, find me, if he wakes up. House limps to the door, just as I finish washing my hands.

"I could have sworn it was all a dream. I woke up and you weren't right there and—for a minute I thought I made it all up and—," he stops; rubbing his eyes a little. "I'm glad you're still here."

"I'm not going anywhere, ever again, you won't—I mean, even if you tell me to, I'm not leaving."

"I don't think I want to here whatever it is you plan on saying next," he says with a sigh. "How long can we wait until we have to have this conversation?"

"It an wait until tomorrow, but then we have to talk," I explain, stroking his cheek softly, with my hand. "It's not as bad as you think. I promise."

"I'm hungry," he says, completely ignoring me. "What are you making for dinner?"


	11. Let's Make a Deal

So, uh, Wilson is a complete and utter asshole. I am sorry for his behavior in this fic, but you know, this stuff just happens sometimes. Right about now, I feel like beating him to the ground and Kicking Jimmy in the ribs over and over until he starts crying. This chapter goes up tonight and then one more short one before next week, and possibly finishing it on Tuesday, if they resolve this Tritter thing.

"All the people that you know, say you're ready to break down  
All the people that you know, say you're ready to fall  
I have to say that you are better than they think you are  
Have to say that you are better than them all  
Have to tell you that you have an easy answer  
When you need someone to call  
I just want to be there when you need a hand to help you turn it all around  
I just need to be there when you feel like you just need to come down  
I just want to be there when you need to find yourself on the solid ground   
I just want to catch you when you fall down," Everclear

We eat, watch TV, drink beer, and go to bed without saying much of anything. Now it's late, after midnight but I can't sleep. I can't shut off my brain. My mind is racing. Did I do the right thing? Should I have waited? Are things really that bad? What would House be like if he got off the pills? I got a look at that after he had the Ketamine treatment. He was cautious; he was nervous; he was a completely different person and what he became, the things he did, made me worry.

I love him. God, I love him. I just want the best for him, but maybe I went about this the wrong way. I should have talked to him before—except I already know, I tried talking to him before and he wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't do anything.

"House," I whisper, very quietly the first time, but then I repeat it, louder and a third time in my normal voice. He rolls over, moaning. "We gotta talk. I need to talk."

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" House asks, looking over at the clock. "You are out of your fucking mind.

"I know exactly what time it is. I haven't slept a wink all night long. I can't seem to fall asleep."

"Guilty conscious? Not surprising. What did you do, Jimmy? I've spent the past few days trying to figure this out. If you had agreed to testify against me, I'd have been in a cell detoxing a week ago, at least."

"Can you just keep quiet for once in your life?" I say, much too harshly. "I didn't mean—look, you've got a problem, House. You need help."

"Don't. You're the only who ever believed me. You're the only one to stand by me. Now you've crossed over to the dark side."

"No. I'm not. Maybe it started when I—you know—and maybe it was before that. Either way, I'm sorry that you feel you need to…"

"Stop. If you're about to say what I think you're about to say, then just stop. Now!" He starts to get up but holds still when I reach out and grab his arm. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I love you and I'm afraid for you. You've changed. You're not the person you used to be and I want the man I fell in love with."

"What makes you so sure he isn't me—I'm not him? Whatever. Isn't it possible that I haven't changed in the way you think I have and _that_ is what you're worried about."

"House, you can't—I don't even know how to respond to that, except to say that it's not true. I knew you back then, before all of this started. Yeah you were still a creep with a temper but you weren't this self-destructive and you were able to control yourself." House yanks his arm out of my grasp, climbing out of bed and staggering across the room.

"I'm in pain, every minute of every day. I don't know how to prove that to everyone. There is no test for pain, there's nothing. The only problem I have is not being able to make the pain stop!" he shouts, turning his back to me. "Tell me what you did."

"I talked to Tritter but I'm not—I told him—I said you don't belong in jail, and I believe that."

"But he wouldn't just buy that and give up. You must have made some sort of bargain. Cut the crap, James. Tell me what you did."

"Tritter said I was right. You need help. He said that if you'd agree to get help, he'd drop the charges and you could keep your license." House turns around, glaring at me. His eyes are wet, but only a little. He reaches for the pills. I want to stop him. I feel like I ought to do something, but I can't even make myself stand up.

"You had no right! This is my life. These are my choices. I never did anything wrong. Don't say it! I don't need help, not from Tritter and especially not from you!"

"You are so far over the line that you can't even see it any more! You need—something and I can't give it to you. I don't know how." House comes back towards the bed, sitting on the edge of it, staring at the floor. I reach to put my hand on his shoulder but he moves out of my reach.

"Why don't we cut out half of your thigh and see how it makes you feel. Maybe I am screwed up but no more than anybody else."

"Tritter says you can stay out of prison if you agree to go to rehab. You can't tell me that I'm asking too much. We both know you need this. Just say yes and everything will be okay. Please. Do this for me, for yourself, for us. Please. Do this." House looks back at me, desperately, shaking his head and closing his eyes. "Please."

All I can do now is sit here and hope and pray. Pray I made the right choice. Pray he'll listen to me. Hope he'll say yes, that he'll do this one thing. Hope we will be okay. House starts to open his mouth, almost instantly, and I know what he's going to say. "Can you just take five minutes—or more—to think this over?"

"I could spend the rest of my life thinking it over and I'd still come up with the same answer. No! Why do you keep on insisting on turning me into one of your projects?"

"Is that what you think this is?" I ask, making one last feeble attempt to hold him.

"I can't believe you don't see it. You're practically transparent. This is what you do James. You find some pathetic, needy, damaged person and you throw all of your energy into building them up, into fixing them and then you move on."

"Well, I must not be very good at it. You and I have been together longer than my other relationships put together and you're still a mess!" That came out a lot meaner than I had wanted it to, but I don't care.

"I'm not broken and even if I were, _you_ are the last person I'd ask to fix me." He sniffles, almost in silence, but it's there. I do hear him. I could easily push him over the edge, really hurt him. I could easily hurt him very badly.

"Do you really want me to respond to that? Because right now, this has the opportunity to go very wrong. No I know you think you're fine—"

"Don't patronize me. I have a—I'm not fine but I don't need help! I don't need your help and I defiantly don't need help from the fucking cops."

"I don't think you have a choice here. Tritter is going to send you to jail if you don't do this. He's not happy with the solution as it is, but he went for it because it was the bet he could get. I don't want to be responsible for—," House cuts me off, turning and staring straight into my eyes like a big angry dog.

"You're feeling guilty because you _are _responsible for this! If you had just kept your big mouth shut," he growls, his voice trailing off.

"If I hadn't of said anything he would have found a way and it wouldn't have involved a compromise. I have never seen you this bad. I love you and I'm scared for you and I'm scared of what you might do. Take some time and think about the deal. I'll beg if I have to. I'll bargain with you, make compromises, go with you, whatever it takes but you have to do this. You need help and you're never going to ask for it." House sits on the edge of the bed, staring into space for the longest time. Then he turns, faces me and speaks, finally.

"What if you're wrong? What if you, and Tritter and Cuddy and everybody have it all wrong and it's not a problem and my pain—the pain I've been dealing with for years—is real? What a terrible thing it would be to put me through all of this only makes everything unimaginably worse?" he shouts at me, his voice an anger-covered nugget of fear. "Well?" he snaps after several minutes of my watching him in stunned silence and there are a million things I could say, should say, but not a single word comes to mind. All I can do is shrug.

House gets up and walks out of the room, never once looking back. "I think you should go home," his voice calls through the locked bathroom door. I want to force open the door, march in, hold him in my arms, and promise to make everything all right. I want to give him the answers his questions, even the ones I don't know. I want to tell House how much I love him. I want to stay, always to stay, but I don't do any of these things.

I simply let my shoulders slump as I tell him, "okay," walking to the door of the apartment, stepping out into the night.


	12. Forgiveness

"A long December and there's reason to believe  
Maybe this year will be better than the last  
I cant remember the last thing that you said as you were leaven  
Now the days go by so fast," The Counting Crows

The moment the door slams shut I realize I've made a terrible mistake, and not just because it's December and I'm standing on the sidewalk in Jersey, barefoot, coatless, pant less, and without my wallet or keys. The second I close the door, all I want is to take it back. I just did exactly what House was expecting me to do. I walked out on him, after promising I never would. Not that he didn't completely deserve it, mind you, he even asked me to leave, but it was still the wrong thing to do.

_Shit_! I have to get back in there. I can't leave him alone, right now. I can't let him down like that. He shouldn't be alone right now. I press my ear to the door, trying to hear what he's doing in there. _Damn it's cold out here!_ At least nobody is around this early. I knock politely the first time but when he doesn't answer I get louder, more nervous, and I don't stop until House yanks it open and sort of growls at me but I'm allowed inside none-the-less.

"The fuck do you want?" he asks as I stand in the hallway, not going to get my pants or wallet, which are probably the only reason I can come back. I step closer, reaching out to touch his face but he pushes me away.

"I'm sorry," I mutter at last. "I am so sorry. I seem to be saying that a lot lately and it probably doesn't help but I didn't plan on any of that. I wasn't expecting—I was hoping things would go better."

"You're a jerk, a bigger one than me maybe. I would never sell you out, not for anything, not even if I thought I was saving you—which by the way you're _not_ doing. Now get your shit and leave."

"No. I'll sleep on the couch or in the tub, or whatever you'll give me but I'm not going." He bites his lip.

"Fine," House says looking at the floor and then he takes the pill bottle from his pocket and chews a handful of pills. "How long have you and I known each other? And you thought I'd what—just roll over and take this?"

"I thought, you would realize that you are out of options here," I start to explain. "You're—you…never mind." House shakes his head, and closes his eyes for a minute.

"I need you not to say anything right now. For about five minutes, okay?" he asks, and this time when I reach to put my arm around him he doesn't fight me. The two of us sink slowly to the floor and he relaxes enough to fall into my arms, eyes shut tight, body rigid.

Over the next few minutes, as the pills start to kick in, his body uncurls. He loosens up and even opens his eyes. "You may speak now but—can this thing wait until the sun comes up?"

"Yeah. Look I'm sorry for what I said and how I said it but the general idea—I'm just sorry."

"If I forgive you will you just shut up?" he snaps, "I really don't need this right now." At first I think he's just staling but then House gets that far away look in his eyes and suddenly I understand just how much my timing sucks.

"Before I woke up, you were having one of those dreams. Oh shit. I didn't mean to—what I'm trying to say is—are you okay?"

"I've been worse." He's still trying to act tough and then quietly, "thanks for coming back. Believe it or not, it helps. I knew I was going to have the dream. I haven't gotten any real sleep in about a week. Funny, I still can't prepare myself for that even when I know it's coming."

"There's no way for me to try and defend my behavior tonight, even if you weren't having a nightmare. I was cruel and I hurt you, for no real reason other than that I could and I'm sorry for that, but—"

"But you're talking about it _again_. I just…I need to try and get some more sleep," he says yawning. He stands up, slowly, wobbly, making his way back to the bedroom. "Come here. It's easier not to wake up alone." So, I lay down on the mattress, House's body resting right up against mine. He closes his eyes, breathing softly.

"I love you," I whisper in the darkness, kissing the top of his head. "I just love you so much." I keep saying it over and over even after he falls asleep. "I love you and I'm sorry and I forgive you."


	13. Complications

Author's notes: WARNING contains spoilers for Merry Little Christmas. So yeah, we've got a lot more coming in the way of this plot/the Tritter arc. GOD I hate that man. Anyway, here is my fic.

"I wish I could push a button and make the pain all go away  
I wish I had the magic words but I don't know what to say  
I wish I could take the wasted years and throw them all away  
And it might sound easy for me to say  
You are going to find a way to fix what's broken," Everclear again.

"I screwed up," House says when he knocks on my door at 3:00 am, his eyes red and his face haggard.

"I know. I was at your apartment." I'm tired of this conversation and I'm not even going to bother any more. I mean Jesus I love him but this is just too much. You can't help somebody who doesn't want it and House doesn't want anything, except the fucking pills. "I don't even want to hear you try and justify this."

"Pain. And that's all I'm going to say. I went to Tritter to take the deal but—he knows what I did. And uh—well the good news is, you're off the hook." He stops, biting his finger a bit. "You knew. You had to have known. You saw me, and you didn't do anything. I just—would you say something, so I know that I'm not talking in French here?"

"What do you want me to say?" I'm losing him. I can feel it, and I'm not even trying to help any more. I just keep pushing him away. Maybe it's my own self-preservation kicking in. "I tried everything I could to do what I thought was best but—could you just for once do the right thing?"

"I—you're the only good thing in my life. The pills help me deal with all of the bad things. And you didn't just take that away—you…I don't even know the words to describe how that feels." He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Have you ever seen those videos, where some guy with entirely way too much time on his hands sets up a room full of dominos and then he knocks the first one over and they just keep going. And they fall down, over and over and pretty soon all that's left is a messy room. Stop looking at me like that. I'm not _that _high. I do have a point."

"You writing those scripts was the first domino? You have to put that one in there because if there weren't any bad scripts he wouldn't of had any ammo and there wouldn't have been any dominos."

"I know, but—uh—there's nothing I can do about that. Besides, he's not coming after you anymore."

"If my being a jerk was the only reason for me going to Tritter than I wouldn't have made a deal for you. I know, it was the wrong deal and I basically dropped a boulder on half of your metaphoric dominos, but I do care. I do love you, for what it's worth. House grabs my hand, and squeezes it softly. I pull his hand to my mouth and kiss it.

"Cameron told me about your arm. Can I see it? That looks painful. Is there anything I can do to help?" House jerks his arm away from me. "You were doing a lot more than trying to take your mind off the pain in your leg."

"Don't be stupid Jimmy. If I wanted to do _that, _I would have made vertical cuts. Less chance of clotting and you don't have to—never mind. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. I thought I'd died and gone to Hell." House looks at me with those big, sad eyes and I feel like a complete shit.

I wish I knew a better way to help him. I wish I knew what was right. All I wanna do is help him. I just want to hold him. I just want to love him. "You think they'll let us have conjugal visits?" he asks, with the tinniest little laugh. "Okay, so that wasn't really funny. Look, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do right now. I'm just—it's confusing. And…I'm scared."

"I know. Believe me, I know. I'm scared too, and confused and worried and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. I'm not even sure what's going to happen."

"Yeah." He says and then pauses. "I didn't mean to—what I'm trying to say is—that—I wasn't trying to—Today—what happened—it was a mistake. And I'm sorry. I just felt so good and I had been feeling so awful. I just didn't want the good to go away."

"And you're not used to the Oxy. Don't say anything, because if you are I don't want to know about that."

"I'm not. I don't take it. I didn't before and I won't do it again. It was stupid and I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't think—I can't do that. I feel so fucking pathetic right now," House says biting down on his lip.

"Don't do that." I put my hand on his cheek. "Please," I whisper, leaning in closer. He nods but clenches his teeth. "Can I hold you?" House nods, sitting down on the couch. When I sit next to him, he lays his head against my shoulder. I wrap both of my arms around him.

"Why'd you stop coming by? I know you're mad and I was mad at you but you said you stay and you didn't and I needed you more this week than I ever have," he whimpers, softly. I watch as he wipes his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths. My shirt is wet. He's crying.

House doesn't want me to know it. So, right now I've only got two options. I can either let him know I can tell he's crying, wound his pride and comfort him and try to make it all better. Or I can ignore his obvious suffering, which will allow him to keep his dignity but he'll be in pain and he's going to wonder if I care at all.

Why can't anything with House ever be simple?


	14. The Calm After the Storm

Author's note: So um yeah the next chapter is going to be completely from House's point of view and it might take my having to take a—having to experiment in order to get into his head. I'm not going to tell if I plan any semi-legal escapades. Just trying to be House for a while.

"I Have No Answer For You Little Lamb  
I Can Help You Out / But I Cannot Help You In  
Sometimes You Think That Life Is Hard  
And This Is Only One Of Them  
My Heart Is Breaking For You Little Lamb  
I Can Help You Out / But We May Never Meet Again," Paul and Linda McCartney

"Hey," I ask after a long, suffering silence. I figure, if I ask House he's doing that'll give him the chance to open up, if he wants to. "Are you okay?" He doesn't say anything for a while, but then he lifts his head, a few years still clinging to his cheeks. "I shouldn't have left, when I was at your place earlier. Then it hits me. "You didn't miscalculate doses. You weren't even trying to get high. You were—you—you promised." He looks away, and says something I can't here. I think he knows I can't hear his voice, because he repeats it.

"You promised too and you broke yours. You had to know how I was feeling…. should have been there."

"I'm—I know. I should have been there and I shouldn't have left when I found you and I should have protected you and about a million other things. I screwed up too. But—I'm here now. I'm here and I'm never leaving again, okay?"

"No. No…no…no," his voice keeps on saying it over and over. He's scared. I broke one too many promises. I've hurt him one too many times and I may never get the chance to make it up to him. So I pull him closer, praying that he'll give me another chance, he'll forgive me again and I will have the opportunity to make all of this right.

I have to hope that I can hold him all night long and tomorrow and for as long as he needs. "I'm sorry. I didn't—you weren't supposed to be the one who—," he stops, his breath hitching. I put my hand on his head, softly, gently stroking his hair and House makes a soft noise, but not out of pain or fear.

"I knew. As soon as I saw you, part of me just knew, and I just thought, okay. If you want it that bad, you can go. And I didn't wanna have any part of it."

"You got tired of cleaning up my messes? Or you got tired of taking care of me?" he says these things, without his usual anger or conviction.

"No. Well—yes to the first part. I thought that you would be—that you would feel better if you were—it's stupid, I know. And I love you, so the last thing in the world I should do is help you die, unless you really need to be that way.

"I wanted to—when I did that, wanted to—but now I'm not sure. I never expected it to hurt here," he touches his chest and then lets his hand fall limply, back to his side. "I just wanted that to go away. The pills make me numb and then they were gone and _you _were gone. It was just too much."

House lays there, with his head in my lap, eyes closed trying not to cry and he says like that for a while. I know there's something I should say, something he needs me to do but I don't know what that is. So I hold him, and I keep on touching his hair, slow and soft. He's the only person in my life that maters, at all. I love him so much it hurts. I lean down slowly to kiss his head and even though he flinches he won't pull away, so I stop.

"I need to know if I have to lock up all of the sharp objects before we go to bed or if you're gonna be okay for a little while."

"I'm not sleeping tonight," he whispers. "…Not even sure if…plan on moving." His voice keeps on fading in and out.

"Okay," I tell him, leaning back a little. As I watch him laying perfectly still, clenched, all I can think is _my god what have I done? _ I want to be angry with him, for stealing drugs and lying to me about it, for getting himself into this trouble with the cops, for stealing drugs again and for hurting himself.

Mostly, I want to be mad because it's easier than realizing how close I actually came to losing him, because _that_ scares the crap out of me. I'm not mad, though, not now, not any more. Part of me even believes that I'm responsible for this, well not all of it but a significant chunk.

I've hurt him so much and he still comes back to me. I know he doesn't have anybody else, but—that makes me feel worse. I mean he's got no one except for me. I'm supposed to be his friend, his only friend, and I've betrayed him over and over. I've hurt him in the same way that everybody else ever did. I hurt him enough to push him over the edge, and I'm feeling scared and worried about him, but mostly, mostly I feel guilty.

"…A good friend," House says, yawning. "I need coffee or something, otherwise I'm going to fall asleep and I can't do that—not now anyway."

"I'm gonna have to get up, but I can make us a pot of coffee," I tell him. House sits up, rubbing his eyes, moving slowly. "If you think you can be careful, if I can trust you, your pills are in the table drawer," I tell him, still not sure if I should but knowing that he's had enough pain and I shouldn't add to it.

"I'll be fine as long a you don't kick me out of here in the middle of the night," he explains to me and I can't tell if he's being glib or if I should worry.

"If I were going to do that, I'd take the pills back first," I come up with at last, stupidly. House staggers into the kitchen just as the coffee is ready. "I would have brought it back there."

"I know." He pulls a chair away from the table and sits down. "That was the stupidest comeback I have ever heard, by the way."

"How's your stomach," I ask, leaning into the fridge to get some cream for myself. He says nothing. "You should really eat something. Right now your—," he stops me, not with words but by holding up his hand, as if to say, enough. "Toast? Or do you think you could handle a little more. I think I could make some soup."

"No! No soup. Spent the past two days puking Campbell's chicken noodle. Never eating it again." He sighs, thinking for a minute. "Toast is fine."

"Is there something you want? Because it's not a problem if you want—I um—I mean…I can pretty much whip up anything. Unless you really do want toast then I can do that but whatever you want…"

"Stop babying me. That's going to drive me nuts faster than anything else. Toast is fine. I don't care. I don't really want it but you're right. I should have something." Then he stops for a few minutes. "Look Jimmy, if I was—if I just start—if I tell you—if I'm willing to talk. If I'm gonna tell you---everything, would you be able to keep your mouth shut and just let me talk? 'Cuz I can't do this with interruptions, okay?"

"When you say everything, do you mean…I mean—where are you going to start because this is sort of…" House cuts me off.

"Is that a yes or no, James? Because you keep on saying how important it is for me to talk about things but you interrupt me whenever I start."

"I think you're on this wave—this near death—I think you believe you're feeling better than you actually are and when it wears off…"

"Shut up! I know how I feel. I know this is a mistake but if I don't do it tonight I never will. So are you going to be able to keep quiet or not?" I bring my chair and the plate of toast over to him. "No interruptions, okay? Just save up your comments until I finish. Can I do that?" He asks and it's a cruel question because he wants an answer but if I say anything, he won't do this and despite my apprehension, I think House needs to get this off his chest. So I just nod, silently and he takes in a deep breath. "I'm not really sure where to start…"


	15. Help

Authors note: I have no idea how much longer it's going to be. Just keep waiting. And this is pretty much all House speaking which is why there are no end quotes between paragraphs. Hope it's not too confusing but I didn't want to do a whole Ulysses thing where I do a whole thing with no paragraphs or periods or anything.

"You say you're lookin' for someone  
Never weak but always strong,  
To protect you an' defend you  
Whether you are right or wrong,  
Someone to open each and every door,  
But it ain't me, babe,  
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,  
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe," Bob Dylan

"I'm not sure I know where to start," house says staring into his coffee as though it might hold some answer. "You're the one how keeps on pushing me to _talk_. I came in here thinking I'd just tell you everything but I—I'm not sure I can do that now. You're right. This is probably a bad idea. The last thing I want is to talk about when I was a kid and—shit! Oh why the fuck did I do that…I called my mom, last night, or maybe this morning. I'm not sure about the time but it was before I—can you just call them later and let her know everything is okay. Just nod or something if you'll do it. Good. Well you want me to talk so what should I say?

"Well? Sorry, I forgot. You may speak now, Jimmy."

"How about we start with last night?" I ask, not sure I ought to let him say anything at all. House doesn't really want to do this but he thinks it's what I want so he's doing it for me.

"That was the last domino, or maybe your finding me like that and leaving was. Either way, it's stupid—you know what happened…

"You said you wouldn't leave, no matter how mad I got, no matter what I said, no matter what I did. You said you would protect me, you said you'd be there—Jesus I can't believe I'm saying all this. It's like something from a stupid romance novel. Why am I doing this? Speak boy. Just say something before—no on second thought don't.

"You made all of these promises and it's not that you've never lied to me before but I can usually tell with you. This means that you weren't lying when you said those things and I've done something in the interval that caused you to change your mind.

"I figured either you had stopped loving me or had decided to stop putting up with my shit. This was before I tried to—this was before—it didn't really make a difference what the reason was, I was alone, in more pain than I'd been in for years. I was throwing up every hour, I couldn't sleep, I had no pills. And then…

"I had all of this pressure, pushing down on me and I couldn't work. Cuddy wouldn't let me and even Cameron deserted me. I know what you're going to say but she was on my back as much as you guys were. Everyone was trying to push me into that stupid deal of yours and I really was—I really am—in pain.

"My leg does actually hurt and nothing helps that except the Vicodin. I know. I shouldn't do it. I probably do belong in rehab but what exactly did you think was going to happen to me there? Hmm? Group therapy, meetings with shrinks, doctors everywhere all of them trying to get into my head.

"Do you really think I could get out of a place like that without somebody realizing what—he did to me? I told_ you_ and you treat me like—you still think I'm fragile and maybe I am but you treat me differently. You let me get away with more now. You're constantly thinking about it. I see it every time you look at me, Jimmy and I hate it.

"And all I could keep on thinking was how if I told one person everybody would find out and pretty soon every person I ever met, patients, other doctors, Cuddy, my team, everybody would look at me and they wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it. They wouldn't—I wouldn't be able to do my job, not with everybody walking around on eggshells because of me.

"And I differently can't go to prison. I'm a cripple and with my history…I'd get eaten alive. Plus I was in pain, a lot of pain and you were gone and I didn't know if you were coming back. I didn't even know whether or not you loved me anymore. So that is pretty much what I was thinking last night. But then it didn't work.

"I took too much and I didn't leave enough extra pills in case I threw up and had to take more. So I couldn't do anything except lay there but then there you were at my door. You came back. You were worried about me. Even through the fog I saw it in your eyes. Then you saw me, and I could see the change. You gave up on me. I—even—I didn't think it was possible.

"That's what did it. I couldn't even kill myself right and on top of it you really dint care anymore. That was when I realized how badly I screwed up. So I went to see Tritter to take the deal and he knew about the OXY and that was it. I didn't have any more choices.

"I was going home to do it right this time, because part of me—most of me still wanted to die—still wants to die even now but I stopped here first. I think I wanted you to stop me. I'm not sure though, but I had to get everything squared away with you first. That's how I got myself here.

"I—can you get my jacket. In the right front pocket is an envelope. It's—I wrote a note. I was afraid you wouldn't answer the door and I didn't want—I was just going to slip it under the door if you wouldn't talk to me. I'm not sure if you wanna read it or stuff it in a drawer or throw it in the trash but..."

"I'm not reading it House. I'm not even going to touch it. If I have that then it would be like I was giving you permission to go. You thought you were coming here to get back at me. You were hoping I wouldn't open the door you were hoping that by the time I realized what was wrong, it would be too late. Part of you wanted me to stop you but you wanted to make me feel guilty." House just nods and lets me hold me.

"Yeah, that too. Most of the note is what I just said and there were a few things I wanted done—after… I'm sorry. It seems like I've been screwing up a lot lately, even for me. How is it that—why do you keep on forgiving me, and letting me back in? You can answer now, I'm finished. At least, I think I am." House looks away, finishing his second cup of coffee.

"I forgive you for the same reason you keep on forgiving me. I love you. We love each other. Look, I'm not sure how I'm going to do this but I am going to fix everything. I'll figure out away to make this Tritter thing go away."

"No—I mean, it's my mess, my screw-up. I need to fix it. I have to clean up after myself for once."

"It's our mess. I'm just as responsible as you are. If I had been more on top of things—I know you well enough to know that I did the wrong thing, every step of the way. But I'm here now and I'm sorry and I'll do better. From now on I'll do better.

"Okay," he says, pulling my arm tight around him. I was expecting more in the way of anger or of House just being House but he's being quiet and I know that isn't good.

"Is that it? I didn't mean—I need to hear you say something so I know you're not eyeing every drawer in here trying to figure out where I keep my steak knives."

"If I were going to try and kill myself again—and yeah I'll admit to the fact that I was trying to do that last night—but if I were going to do it again wouldn't do it here. I'm here because I need your help. I'm asking for your help in whatever capacity you're willing to give it to me in."


	16. The Phone Call

"Daddy didn't give attention  
Oh, to the fact that mommy didn't care," Pear Jam

"Yeah. I'll help you. Whatever you need. All you gotta do is ask," I tell him. House looks over at me, rubbing his eyes—still tired despite the coffee. "—But you don't won't ask. You'd don't want to tell me what's wrong." I put my hand on his, squeezing it softly.

"You know what I need and since you can't get rid of Tritter I want you to help me just for now. Until—until whatever is going to happen, happens." House looks around, sighing. "I don't know what I want. I'm not even sure what I need."

"I'm here until you figure that out and this time I'm—I have to think of something better than my promise. I can put this into writing. I can—."

"It's okay. I trust you. I mean—as much as I can trust anybody. This coffee isn't helping. I'm exhausted."

"How long has it been since you've slept?" I ask. He shrugs. "A couple of days sound about right? Come on, lay down. I'll stay with you. I'll call your mom while you're asleep."

"Wait," House says, suddenly wide eyed and wide awake. "You know you can't lie to her right? She'll know. If you say—she always knows."

"I'm going to tell her the truth. You had a little too much to drink last night and she is one of many people you called and left weird message for. I was worried, so I came by and you're fine now."

"You're not gonna tell her—the,--about the pills? They don't know about us, at least, I don't think…please, don't tell them."

"As far as I'm they can live the rest of their lives thinking we're just friends, if that's what you want." I wish he could be honest with his parents that their relationship was better but I know how difficult these things are for him.

"I know. This all sucks, but I'm going to figure out a way to make it up to you, Jimmy," House says lying down, finally and despite the coffee, he falls asleep. I sit next to hi for an hour, with the phone in my lap, staring at it. House's mom picks up on the first ring.

"Greg? Is that you? Are you okay?" she asks, clearly concerned. "I've been calling you all day. Why didn't you pick up?"

"It's Dr. Wilson—I mean James. I work with your son. Ho—Greg and I are good friends," I explain.

"Is he alright?" she asks I'm not sure whether she remembers me or if she's just worried and clinging to whoever is around. "We got a strange message last night and now he won't pick up our calls."

"He made a lot of calls like that. He just had a bit too much to drink. I think he was feeling down but he's sleeping now. It's fine. Everything is going to be fine."

"I know you two are close. So I trust you, but I need to know. Is he really okay?" she asks, sounding like she's already planning to let me hang up.

"He's fine. He wanted to talk and I've been kind of busy lately. I think he felt—it doesn't matter. Things are better now."

"Can I speak to him?" she asks and I know I should wake him but this is the last thing House needs.

"He's sleeping now, but I'll see what I can do when he wakes up, alright?"

"If he doesn't call—and we both know he wont—just let him know I called his place, okay?" she says and then hangs the phone up. As I watch him sleep, my mind is racing and all I can think is about how badly I screwed up and how in comparison to what she's done, it's nothing. She had to know that things were worse than I was willing to admit and yet—she should have demanded to talk to her son or at least pushed me for the truth. No wonder he doesn't trust anyone.

I keep expecting House's mom to call back, having realized that she missed something hug e during our phone call, or because she gives a shit, but the phone doesn't ring. I watch him sleep, looking more exhausted than I've ever seen him and I put my hand on his head just a soft touch.

He wakes up a few hours later and I know he'll be able to figure out what happened with his mom as soon as he looks at me. I won't even have to say anything. It's written all over my face.

"And you wonder why I'm screwed up," is all he says before hobbling into the living room for his pills. I follow, partly because I'm worried he's still planning to hurt himself, and partly because I feel like I have to do something for him even if I don't know what that something is, yet.

I sit next to him on the sofa as he stares towards the wall, waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. "She does love me—I think. She tries a lot harder than he does but the past few years—I'm worse now than I was before—so I guess I can't really blame her, can I?"

When he turns to me, I see in his eyes how much he wants me to tell him that he can and should blamer. The problem is, if I tell him that, it's almost the same as telling him that she doesn't care enough, doesn't really love him, not enough anyway.

"I think that she doesn't see you enough to be able to see how bad you've been and to have gotten used to the idea that you might do something like this.

After a long, deep sigh, House says, "yeah, you're right, but that doesn't—I think it makes things worse. At least it makes me feel worse." I put my arm around is shoulder and he leans up against me. "What am I going to do? Not about this—about—you know…" Tritter.

"I don't know, but I will think of something. I'm going to need some time, and we should get help form—."

"No!" he cuts me off, lifting his head but not pushing my arm away. "I barely even wanted your help. I'm sure as hell not asking anybody else and you aren't asking for me!"

"Cuddy's worried about losing—your…abilities. I'm not sure what she's willing to do to keep you as a doctor but," my voice trails off.

"Stop. Cuddy's going to do whatever she's going to do whether I ask for her help or not, and as far as my team goes…well that is not even…you know."

"Okay. So, it's you and me against the world, eh?" He nods. "I don't suppose you have any ideas? You're better with these puzzles than I am."

"You're trying to make me feel better about being sent to prison for no reason, by—appealing to my vanity?"

"I'm trying to cheer you up as much as possible. I'm doing whatever I can. I want to keep you comfortable between now and…" only I can't finish. Luckily House doesn't need me to. He knows exactly what I'm trying to say even when I'm not so sure.

"I'm hungry," he says, lifting himself off my arm in order to let me up to go make something for us to eat. I know that the food isn't really what he wants but he doesn't know what he really wants and neither do now.

SO, for now all I can do for him is make him comfortable, like a terminal patient. As I make my way towards the kitchen, House says one last thing to me. "Thanks Jimmy. For everything, thank you." Well, at least it's a start. Now, if I could only keep him out of jail.


	17. A Change

I've still got a long way to go. Bear with me if I get a little repetitive, they are going through a rough time and when things are really bad you say and do the same things over and over.

"And I don't know a soul who's not been battered  
I don't have a friend who feels at ease  
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered  
or driven to its knees," Paul Simon

House doesn't say anything while we're eating, which I know is a bad sign. He never shuts up, no matter how upset or angry or frustrated he is. He'll talk about anything and everything, whether the other people around him care or not and it's only when he gets quiet hat I know things are really awful. I make a couple of pathetic attempts at conversations, none of which work.

I'll say something like, "you wanna watch a movie?" or, "uh—we could just channel surf until we find something interesting." He'll lift his eyes from his plate just long enough to make eye contact.

Then, he'll shrug his shoulders and mutter, "eh," and then stuff a forkful of food into his mouth as if to signal exactly how little he wants to speak.

"Look I know you're feeling like crap right now, but I need a couple of words every hour or two just so I know that you're still in there, okay? Can you do that for me?"

"Would me telling you to go fuck yourself suffice? Or do you need more specific instructions?" he shoots, looking to the doorway, trying to decide if it's worth the effort to get up or not. A few minutes go by and he turns his head to me. "That was a bit of an over reaction. I shouldn't have done that. I guess I'm more—bothered by this thing with my parents than I want to admit."

"You should be bothered by it. You should be upset. You should be furious. You can get pissed. This isn't the first time they've ignored you—their only son, their only child—when you needed heir help."

"They didn't ignore me when—oh crap. Oh crap," he says again, dragging the words out, much more slowly, this time. "They did, didn't they? I was probably throwing up all of the flares—it should have been obvious but nobody did anything. He wouldn't even listen when I tried to tell him and he said…" The timber of House's voice changes completely.

He sounds frightened. He sounds far away, defiantly sad. There are tears forming in his eyes. I can se them even though he's fighting like hell to keep them back. I watch as House lays his head on the table, trying to stop himself from crying and hide the fact that he can't all at the same time.

"Do you want me to—can I—I want to hold you. It's not—you don't have to if you don't want to. I wanna talk you through this but I also want not to push you because right now you're pretty—uh pretty…" I can't finish. He lifts his head slightly and wipes his eyes.

"Okay," he croaks, and then coughs, clearing his throat. "Just don't say anything for a little while, alright?" he stammers, almost stuttering. I nod, dipping my arm under his, and the two of us walk, back to the bedroom. He lies down, attempting to curl up into a ball, even after I pull him into my arms, holding him close.

I keep my promise this time. I don't say a word. We just lay there, for a long time. He cries, a little bit, but mostly it's too difficult for him. All he really seems to be able to do is make this very soft, sound like an injured animal.

"I know that you don't want me to talk and I get why. So I'm just gong to say this one thing and that'll be it. Your dad probably told you otherwise, but you are allowed to cry. It's perfectly okay. He was wrong, and you will feel better if you let this all out," I say.

As I'm speaking I start going more and more quickly because I know how little he wants me to talk right now. I know there's a good chance my saying anything, even that could make things worse but I think he needs to hear it. House lifts his face and stares at me blankly for a minute or two. In that time he opens his mouth to speak three times, before the words finally come.

"I'm trying but it's not—I can't get it to…God. I wish we were talking about sex. Wouldn't it be great if all of our problems could be cured with Viagra? Just once I'd like to have normal middle-aged guy problem."

"I think Viagra creates more problems than it solves. That's the thing with sex. Once you have it, you wanna keep on having it again and again and again and a lot of married, middle-aged women aren't exactly up for that," I say knowing I'm running a slight risk here. If I get him to tart laughing right now he might not be able to stop.

Normally that would be a good thing. Keeping House happy, or at least getting him to be happy, is one of the most important things in my life. But he's close to a breakthrough. He could get better if he keeps on going in this direction and if he switches off or shuts down again, I might not get him back.

We seem to have gotten ourselves onto an excruciating unpaved trail, and if he can find his way off it… If he can get back to the main road, even I won't be able to drag him back out here again.

"I don't think I should laugh right now. I'm trying to relax enough so I can do this and—you were just thinking that weren't you? Boy we really are a pair. The colossal screw-up and the pathological do-gooder worry-wart."

I'm a little rogher than I ought to when he says that. I can't help myself though. What he just said makes me concerned about him, very concerned. So I take his face in his face in my hands and I force House to lock eyes with me.

"You are not a screw up. You are worthwhile and beautiful and I love you so much. You _are_ loveable and if your parents can't see that then _they _are the screw ups! Got that?" I drop his face then, or rather I stop forcing him to look at me and he drops his head. He pulls himself, tighter into that ball but also moves in closer to me.

Soon the tears are streaming down his face and he is actually crying. He's crying hard, and not just for a minute or two or ten but for a long time. This very well may be the first time I've ever seen him really let go and have a good, long cry.

And when it's over he looks up at me and says, "Why the fuck would you recommend that? I feel like complete crap now!"

"You've been feeling like crap for a long time, House, and I think that if you were to be perfectly honest with yourself, I think you'd you say that you feel just a tiny bit better," I explain. He looks over at me. "You don't have to say it out loud. I never have to know if this helped but I would like for you to think about it for yourself, even if it's only for a minute. Okay?"

House nods. He's still silent now, as he attempts to wipe his eyes. Every movement he makes is quiet. It's almost as though he were afraid to make noise.

"I've been thinking a lot about us lately, about our problems. I felt like—sometimes I feel like I can't trust you and so I keep things form you, secrets and that makes you feel that you can't trust me and it turns into this whole viscous circle. I don't want to do that anymore" he tells me honestly. Then there is a brief moment of silence, a pause. His mouth opens again, but only a squeak comes out.

"I am very grateful that you are willing to open up to me. It's fantastic. I t mean's your heart is healing but if we push this too hard it's going to make you feel worse. So I want you to talk to me, I do but I want you to take your time and wait until you're ready."

"You know," House asks with a sly smile. "I couldn't help but notice that you didn't defend yourself when I called you a pathological do-gooder worry-wart."

"That's because I am," I tell him and we both smile, tiny ones but smiles all the same. "But we gotta work on you first because I wasn't me I wouldn't go through all of this with you."

"For me," he says sitting up. "You're doing all this for me and you were right, what you said before. I do feel better, not much but there is a difference and it's a good difference. There's a change but it's not bad."


	18. Directions

"Don't like the direction you have come to  
Now it has the attention that it used to  
Stay home all night with the TV and wife  
Comfortable life's not all it's cracked up to be  
Don't like the direction you have come to," Josh Rouse

We sit there for a while, him not quiet looking at me but not looking away either. He rocks back and forth moving so slowly that it's almost as if he were holding still. House bites down on his lip a bit, and I can't hide my own grimace.

"Can I talk again? I mean—like before, I just start talking and you can't do that interrupting thing. I haven't ever really done this before and—I can't stop thinking about…the thing…I think that if I don't do something soon my head's going to explode." He looks over at me desperately.

"I think you should talk to somebody about it and I know how you feel about shrinks and it means a lot that you would trust me enough to talk about this but you've had a rough day and I'm worried you might feel like I pushed you into—."

"Shut up! Either I'm going to tell you this or I'll have to go back to my place and do _it_ right, because right now I can't. So if you're worried about pushing me, please push me this way because—I don't want—I just want to do this. I feel like if I say it then it's not inside me anymore and I think it'll help.

"So, I've always been smart, and I always knew it, and I think teachers and maybe even my parents noticed but I was also immature and at school smart was never enough. There were a lot of meetings about—me and the things I'd do. I don't even remember what they were, probably stupid kid things but it'd be enough to make my dad get angry and he'd—get angry and—that just made me want to act out more which meant more meetings, which meant…

"Nobody ever treated me like I was worth anything or told me I was special or any of those things. So, this teacher comes along and he tells me how smart I am and that he wants me to go to these tutoring sessions with high school kids, I couldn't believe it. But it's me, and so I had to screw it up. One of the other kids—you know I don't even remember what he did to me.

"I think he might have shoved me or slugged me or some stupid thing that teenage boys do and any other eleven-year-old would have ignored it but I was tired of being picked on and sick of being helpless. And I could do something to this guy, he wasn't my dad or a teacher or an authority figure. So I did something to this experiment he was doing it and it bubbled over and stained his face and hands and turned them purple or yellow or something," he stops, smiling a little but it fades. "I'm actually proud of that one, even now.

"Anyway, so there was no way that the two of us could be in that classroom together without it escalating until we blew each other up. I just figured that I'd screwed everything up and it was over. When he said he'd keep on tutoring if I went over to his place, I thought I'd won the lottery. I went over there twice and nothing happened. He might have patted my back or touched my shoulder or something but it didn't bother me. It didn't seem wrong.

"Then this day came and we were sitting at this table going over my notes on something and suddenly I realized that he was very close to me and his hand was—I don't know exactly what happened next and I don't want to remember the specific details, and even more I don't want you to know them because you'd never touch me again—no that came out wrong. You'd feel like you couldn't because you're—you.

"He said that I was very special, and that he—no…I'm not going there. I knew it wasn't right but at first I though, well I didn't exactly say no and push the guy off of me. So I thought maybe I had done something that made him think that it was okay or that I'd given off some sort of signal.

"And every time I saw him at school I was just terrified. So when he asked if I was going to come over again next Saturday, what could I say? Nobody ever said I was allowed to say no to an adult, to someone with authority over me. I mean if someone had just said—but I kept going back there. Then one day we had to sit through this assembly at school and I realized what was happening, what he was doing.

"I went to my dad which was probably a mistake, I should have known he wouldn't understand but I didn't think my mom could do anything. I told him about what had happened and when I finally managed to get everything out he just stared at me for a minute. And he said something like 'if you ever come to me with filth like that again you're not going to be able to sit down for a week,' or you know, something similar to that.

"I think that was when I decided it was easier to just shut down, but it wasn't always enough. I had to turn off my brain. I had to be able to make everything go away. That's why I had—why I needed all the pills. I can't feel this. It's too much for anybody. Stop—I know what you're thinking and the answer is no. Even if I could convince Tritter that this is the truth he wouldn't care. And even if he would let me go back to the deal, I can't deal with this and the pain, without—I can't handle them both.

"You can talk again if you want. In fact I—I'd welcome suggestions." House had moved while he was talking, had built up a huge space between the two of us and now he pulls himself back to me. "Don't let go okay?"

"Okay," I tell him, draping my arm over his shoulder again. "I don't know how to fix this, yet but I am going to figure that out. I'll do whatever it takes to protect you. I'll do everything I can. I know it's not enough, but I love you and I'm not leaving. Never again. I'm here now. I'm here. I'm here," and all I can do is sit there, holding him, repeating it over and over, while I try to come up with some sort of a plan.


	19. Bargaining

"No one knows what it's like to be the bad man  
To be the sad man Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like to be hated," The Who

"You keep saying that," House informs me, "but so far all your suggestions suck! Not that I've got anything better, but the least you could do is wait until you get something good instead of throwing out the crappy kind of ideas I'd expect from my team, but not you. And no shrinks. I know you're thinking it but the answer is no."

He's right of course. I do have this one idea. I didn't mention it because I know he'd never go for it, but if he would just go see someone, a psychologist, at the hospital—at any hospital, Tritter wouldn't be able to touch him, but the problem is he would need to tell someone and if he tells one person, more people will find out. A hospital is like a small town, and soon everyone would know.

"I'm sorry. It's a bad idea. Well, no actually it's a good idea in theory but it won't work for you. I know you won't—or can't go along with it. They'd let you take your pills too, I mean not like before but—"

"Look can we just do something else? I'm sick of this."

"Okay, what would you," and then he cuts me off but not by yelling at me or telling me I'm an idiot. He kisses me, and start reaching for my shirt. "Don't do that. Right now I don't think—with everything you told me today, I don't think I can, maybe in a couple of days…."

"See, this is exactly why I didn't want you to know! Every time you look at me all you're going to be able to see is that."

"No, I see you laying on the floor of your apartment just like last time, just like yesterday and—okay yeah, I see that too, but do you really want to do that right now or is this one of your tests?"

"You said something about watching TV before that sounds good, I just want to do something so I don't have to talk or think or anything." I can tell that there's more, something he doesn't quite want to tell me but it's been a long couple of days and he's been through too much already.

I'm through pushing him. Between now and the trial, whatever he wants, I'll give it to him. Comfort, that's what's important. If I can't keep him out of prison I can keep him comfortable.

The two of us sit on the couch and he chews a handful of pills before taking the remote from my hand. House flips through the stations for a few minutes, stopping on a program that offers nothing, except for the half-naked twenty-five-year-old blonde girl on the screen. He lies down, stretched out, with his head in my lap.

"Comfy?" I ask, touching his hair softly, and this noise comes out of his mouth, if I didn't know him better I would have sworn it was a purr. "Did you just—do what I think you just did?"

"I didn't do anything. But—uh—I just wanted to say thank you, for before. It was sort of a test. I didn't think you would, I mean most people would have just—thank you."

"I'm not most people. I know you; at least I'd like to think that I do. I care about you. I love you, and I can see in your eyes and on your face—," he cuts me off again.

"You're talking about it. Can't we just watch the TV and make small talk or sit here and watch television and shut up like normal people?" he asks and then starts laughing a little. "I think I might be taking a few too many of these," House tells me, handing over the pills. "I'm not stopping, but I just want you to—I mean I don't, I want, I…"

"It's okay. I know what you mean," I say dropping the bottle into my pocket. "Just let me know when you wa—when you need them back."

He keeps on looking up at me, still smiling.

"You know that think you said before? The thing you keep saying? I love you too. I love you Jimmy."

I want to tell him how glad I am go hear that, because while he has said it before, lately things haven't been great between us and I think it means he's getting better., but when I look at him, I can see that his heart is hurting and how little he wants to talk about this.

"It'll be that way for a while," I say softly, "but once you get through it, you'll feel better. Who knows, maybe we could even find a way towards real happiness."

"Yeah and if only I wasn't about to get sent to prison for ten years. After that—that'll be the end of everything, you know."

"I'm not going to let that happen to you. I love you. I know I haven't got a plan yet, but I'm thinking, I'm working over time, but I love you and I will do whatever it takes to protect you."

"Thanks, and I trust you. I know you'll be able to figure this out," he says before closing his eyes, yawning a few times and drifting off into sleep. _Please let me find a way to help him. I can't lose him. I just need something, anything. I'll do whatever it takes, but I have to save him._


	20. What if?

A little holiday update to get you through the week. One more between now and the new episodes and then we get rid of Tritter, and we might get an ending.

"I know it isn't true; know it isn't true  
Love is just a lie, made to make you blue  
Love hurts..." Roy Orbison

House stays asleep for a while and I must have nodded off as well, because the next thing I know I wake up and he's pawing at my pants, digging through one of the pockets.

"What the hell are you doing?" I shout, probably too loud and cruelly, but it's weird and confusing and I'm not quiet sure what else to do or say. House lets go of my pants, and gets up off of his knees, shaking the pill bottle in my face.

"I figured that if I woke you up you'd make that face, yeah the one you're making right now, and—this is difficult enough with you looking at me like that," he says staring at the pills but not taking them just yet.

"I—if you—look when I fix this thing with Tritter, you're going to have to make a choice, a couple of choices. You'll have to decide whether or not you wanna keep going on like this. You don't belong in prison but…"

"Do you think I like who I am? What I am? Do you think I wouldn't change if I could? Even if I wasn't in pain, I've got the other thing and I can't—it's too much. It's been to long and I don't know—please don't make me do this," he begs swallowing the pills dry.

I don't know what I'm supposed to say to him. He should deal with the other thing and if the pain wasn't as bad as he thinks it is then, we could wean him off the drugs, or get him to take less, but he won't do that. He'll never change.

"You stole Oxycodone from a patient of mine, from a dead patient, because you were in pain and strung you. You were like that because Cuddy cut off your Vicodin because Tritter is trying to send you to jail because he found out you forged my signature on a prescription. Yeah, maybe you do need the pills and maybe the reasons for you to take the drugs are more than,"

House throws a pillow at my head, hard, and he tries to storm off but doesn't get very far. He stumbles, trips and falls, landing hard on the floor.

"I fucking hate you!" he screams, and then quietly, "you stupid fuck, you stupid, worthless, limping, loser freak. I hate you," he whispers to himself. "I hate you. I hate you." I know he won't ask for help, and if I try, he'll probably get mad, but he needs me so I go to his side, and I get down on my knees, wrapping my arms around him.

"You're not worthless. Who told you that? And since when do you believe anything anybody ever says?"

House doesn't fight my arms. He even leans back into me a little, and he sighs, loudly. We sit like that for what seems like a long time and he closes his eyes.

"It's harder not to listen when you're five, but I wasn't talking about myself, I meant this, useless excuse for a leg."

"You meant yourself, but—you aren't alone in feeling that way. Nobody likes who they are, well almost nobody."

"Just shut up, okay? This is stupid and pointless. Would you just consider the possibility that I am in pain, real pain and leave it at that? Maybe I _do _take too many pills, but isn't it also possible that I'm in that much pain."

"Fine, when we take care of this thing with Tritter then I'll keep writing perceptions, but would you just talk to me and at least consider some of my advice."

"What exactly, are you planning on trying to do to me?" he asks, rubbing his thigh, wincing.

"I want to help you. Maybe make you less afraid of this thing, make feel stronger, a little happier. I just want to help you."

"You 'just wanted to help,' when you attacked me in the bedroom that day. You 'just wanted to help,' when you told Tritter about the prescriptions and worked out that deal of yours. You 'just wanted to help' every time you screwed up. Why should I trust that now is any different?"

"I'm not sure you should, but I love you and I am trying. I'm doing the best I can—I think I can help you to feel better."

"You're trying to _fix_ me, Jimmy. You think that if you can help me deal with what that—what he did to me then I won't be half as depressed and I won't be in as much pain and then maybe you might be able to get me off the pills, and I'll be a complete person instead of a complete ass, and I'll be forever indebted to you for saving my life."

"And wouldn't that be awful? Less pain, God forbid, and happiness, well who hell is happy anyway? As for debts, do you really think I care about that?"

"What if—what if it doesn't work? What if the pain doesn't go away and everything unravels because I let you get my hopes up? Or what if you can't help? What happens then?"

And this dear reader is where I will leave you.


	21. Fix You

It has been brought to my attention that this fic is OOC and apparently my reviewer did not read the companion pieces "Too Much Rain" and "Casablanca" in which I expressively state that _all_ of my fanfics are OOC and somewhat AU. So :-P to you greenpuppy19!

"When you try your best but you don't succeed  
When you get what you want but not what you need  
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep  
Stuck in reverse," Coldplay (Aw come on it's the name of the chapter title you had to know I was going to do that. Maybe I'll give you one more before the new episode. It depends on how much I want to ignore my novel.)

It's very interesting that House would ask me that. When he takes a risk and tries to do something for his patients, he never worries about the consequences. It'll work; it has too, is what he always thinks, but when I have a suggestion for something (small or large) we can do to help him, his mind instantly jumps to the worst case scenario. I know what he's really asking me for. He's afraid that if he lets me try to help him try to "fix" him not only will it not work, but that I'll hurt him and then I'll leave.

"You don't care if it works or not, you already know how to deal with disappointments like that." I can see him start to flinch away as I'm speaking, but he's self-destructive enough not to try and stop me. "But you already know what I'm thinking. You want me to fail because you think if that happens, I'll let you have my permission to—give up…Jesus, House. I can't even get fed up with you, because you'll take it as a sign that you can," I stop myself just in time.

"I told you, I don't want to kill myself anymore, although if you keep on acting like a shrink and doing this crappy of a job at it, I might change my mind."

"You don't even know what you want, and that scares you, because everything else you can figure out. You can analyze it to death but you've spent so long not feeling anything that the moment you start—it scares the crap out of you."

"Okay," he says, popping the top off of the pill bottle. "That is enough of that. This conversation is officially over."

"You just took those, fifteen minutes ago," I shout, but don't take it away from him. House takes more pills and gives me that look, _his _look.

"Yeah, well then I fell down and landed on my leg, and it started hurting more. Oh and by the way, your theory is full of shit. If I was afraid of my feelings and didn't want to deal with them, I wouldn't have come here."

"Except that you ran out of pills," I say as he pulls himself up and heads for the door. "Wait. Please, don't go. I'm asking you to stay, please."

"Fine," he snaps, staggering back to the couch, and sitting down. "But I'm finished. If you wanna talk, you're going to have to do it with yourself." When I try to sit next to him, House pushes himself all the way up against the edge of the sofa.

"Okay, so maybe I'm not so good at this. I guess this whole mess is pretty much my fault, isn't it?" I ask, knowing that at least this will get him to agree, which means he'll be speaking again, even if it is just to laugh at me.

"Not completely. I've knocked down my share of dominos. Do you even remember that metaphor? Anyway, I screwed up at least as much as you have. It's my fault too."

"Wouldn't it be great if all of this could be Cuddy's fault?" I ask, and this time my plan does work. House smiles.

"Or Chase," he adds chuckling. "Cameron's too. I'm not going to blame Foreman, because he'll just accuse me of racial profiling." House scoots just an inch closer, and lets me put my hand on top of his. After a minute he pulls me closer. "So now what?" he asks looking over at me helplessly.

"I'm not sure," I admit, lifting my arm away from him but he pulls it back, draping it over his shoulders.

"Don't let go, okay? Even—even if you get mad at me. Please don't let go. You were right. I am scared."

"That had to take a lot of courage and I'm proud of you. If you want, we don't have to talk any more about this tonight. If you want you can be done for a while."

"Because I said you were right? If I'd known agreeing with you would get me out of having to talk I'd do it all the time."

"Because you admitted that you're scared. You never talk about your feelings. This is a breakthrough."

"Oh," he says quietly. "I don't suppose you have any idea when it'll start to feel better, do you?" House closes his eyes, and I could have sworn I saw a tear slide down his cheek.

"No. Even if there was some sort of a schedule for this sort of thing…you've been locked up inside of yourself for so long that you're pretty much stuck at eleven. It's different for everybody."

"If you're telling me it could take thirty years before I'm going to feel better, then you might as well forget about it. No way. I'm not doing that."

"It could take that long, but there's no way to know for sure. You can't give up now. Just—give me a couple of weeks, if you feel worse or there's no change then you can…stop."

"No. I mean, stop that. I know you're just trying to be accommodating, but I need you to push me. You're the only one who cares. It's one thing for me to give up on myself, but when you do it," his voice trails off and he starts gritting his teeth.

"Then you're going to stick with this, even if it takes thirty years."

"Yes, Sir," House says mockingly, giving me a single fingered salute. "I uh—okay, so here's the thing. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I mean—how do I even know if it's getting better? I don't feel anything. I don't even know if I can."

"I know you don't wanna hear this, but let me finish before you crap all over my theory okay? You're taking the pills to get rid of pain in your leg but the Vicodin doesn't know that and it's trying to cover up all of your pain."

"That's your big epiphany? The pills haven't been working on my leg because it's trying to do double duty covering the pain in my—the other pain?" He laughs and then after a minute, stops. "Actually that's not bad. You think it could ever get better?"

"Anything is possible," I say after about a fifteen-minute silence, because even though I don't have a clue, I don't want to say no. "I know it doesn't help but the truth is…"

"You don't know. Well at least you didn't try to bullshit me. I think," he winces. "I think I feel something. It's not good though." Another grimace and a grunt.

"Are you okay?" I ask, pressing my fingers to his neck, stupidly and kissing his hair softly. "Well your pulse is strong, so uh—."

"It's not that. Knock it off Jimmy," he moans, pushing my hand away. "My heart hurts, that doesn't mean I'm dying. It's just…defrosting or whatever you wanna call it." Then he holds his hand up for a minute, letting me know to keep quiet. As soon as House lowers his hand, I jump in to speak, even though I'm sure he wants to talk too.

"It's gonna hurt for a while, but I promise it will get better, and I'll make sure you get your pills until it does." He rubs his eyes slowly and then massages his chest.

"Okay. Just don't get me started on this unless you plan on finishing it. No more giving up on me, got that?"

"I got it," I tell him, bend my head and pressing my lips to his chest, kissing just over his heart. Everything that follows is a haze of kissing, grunting, stroking, licking, rubbing, touching, naked, sweaty, passionate fucking. It's the best sex we've had in months and it leaves both of us feeling amazing, sprawled out on my bed, snuggled together.

"Now that, I felt," House says with a smile. "Maybe you were right after all. Maybe being broken isn't everything."


	22. Loneliness

Here's a little bit to nibble on, for now. Maybe one more update before the new episode. Hopefully, I'll finish it soon.

"And its good to be lonely sometimes,  
Its better than nothing at all.  
Its good to be lonely sometimes,  
At least I'm prepared for the fall," Julian Lennon

"Now you're gonna freak out, aren't you?" House asks, sitting up and reaching his pills. "We can only deal with one problem at a time, and it's not gonna be this one."

"Yeah, fine. Look, I know you don't think this was a big deal, but you've had a—we—I shouldn't have done that."

"Shut up. We both enjoyed it. You can't tell me that wasn't great. And I'm not a kid which means that you didn't do anything wrong." I'm not sure what to say. He's had a rough day, a rough couple of weeks actually, and he's confused and scared but at the same time I think he really did like it. I know I did, but I feel like I'm—I can't help but think of him as that scared little kid. "I knew this would happen."

"I'm sorry. I'm working on that, but what—did you just say what I think you did?"

"Yeah, yeah, don't make a huge deal out of it or anything. I'm willing to talk—a little, but that's about it." He takes in a deep breath and sighs. "I never meant for it to get this bad, you know that right?"

"I know, and I forgive you for everything. I don't even care anymore. All I'm worried about right now, is trying to figure this thing out with your psycho cop."

"That's only sounds about half as funny as you think it does," he tells me with a small smirk. Of course, I didn't mean for it to be at all funny. "Okay maybe funny. I don't—I can't go to jail."

"I know, and I'm working on it. I even went back to Tritter and told him that I wouldn't testify. Not that any of that matters now. Why did have to do that? Couldn't you just for once—,"

"Why are we arguing about this? Do you think it'll help if you yell at me again and again?"

"No, it won't help, but if you would just show one sliver of remorse…so I could know that you—so I know that at least…"

"I'm sorry," he says but I know he's not. He might feel badly, but only because he got caught, because he's in trouble. House doesn't feel guilty over much of anything. "But that's not what you wanted to hear, was it? I don't—I'm trying but it's not easy."

"No. I don't think it would be. Frankly, I think this is gonna suck, and it'll hurt, a lot. But you can push past that."

"And what if I can't?" House asks, looking away.

"Can't or wont?" I ask, just a little too roughly. I seem to be doing that a lot lately, so much for my patience. "Never mind. Look, I love you. Either way, but if you stay in this place, you're just gonna end up…you can't."

"Tell me that wasn't an ultimatum," his voice squeaks just a little bit. "Please?" he asks, again, sounding more desperate.

"No. I wouldn't do that—not right now anyway. Maybe when things aren't completely insane, but for now—right now I just wanna keep you…" he cuts me off again.

"I'm not one of your terminal patients, 'keep me comfortable,' stop saying that. It's freaking me out."

"I'm sorry but I'm a little worried—a lot worried actually. I'm scared that I won't be able to keep you out of jail and we both know what would happen then."

"Just stop. I don't wanna talk about it. I don't wanna think about it, not until I absolutely have to. So shut up."

"Yeah," I tell him after a long pause. I know House is thinking the same thing I am, that this could be very bad, but neither of us says a word.

"You wanna talk about it, don't you? You wanna talk and talk and talk and talk and talk," his voice trails off for a while. "Okay. I'm just going to shut up now." I watch him for a while. Part of me thinks that I did the right thing, going to Tritter. There are certainly plenty of reasons, but there this other part.

The part of me that knows how bad everything really is and how much he needs me. I'm all he's got, and that is what makes my betraying him so horrible. Mostly, I just don't know what to do. I don't even know how to help him.

"You did the right thing," he says at last, "and I shouldn't have—I'm sorry. I'm gonna shut up for real now. But don't expect me to—don't think you can use this against me."

"What happened to you shutting up?" I ask, hoping to cheer him up, even if it's just a little. He sort of nods, and shrugs. "Are you—are you gonna be alright?"

"I dunno. I hope so." Me too. Me too.


	23. On Edge

"Nobody loves you when you're down and out  
Nobody knows you when you're on cloud nine  
Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime  
I'll scratch your back and you knife mine," John Lennon

"You're out of ideas, aren't you? You've given up on trying to fix this. That's why you're all hung up on this whole, comfort thing, isn't it?"

I don't wanna say yes, because I do feel like I've given up on him, but I also know that he'll know I'm lying if I say anything else.

"I'm trying. I'm thinking, I am, but it looks pretty bad right now. I just don't know what to do. I'll think of something, I promi—I'll think of something."

"And if you don't?" House asks quietly, pulling my arm over his shoulder, and giving me another one of those looks.

"I'm not sure, but some how I am going to fix this. I won't let," he cuts me off, sighing, loudly.

"You do know that as soon as the words 'I promise' come out of your mouth, I stop listening, don't you? If there's nothing you can do, then just say that, but don't lie to me."

"I'm not lyring," I try to explain. House looks away, and no matter how hard I try he won't look back. "I might be out of ideas, but I'm not giving up okay. I know I've screwd up, and I've hurt up, and I don't deserve your trust, or forgiveness," he won't let me finish, as usual.

"Knock it off, would you? I'm the screw—up here. I know why you did it. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, or that I agree with it, but I know why you felt like you had to do what you did."

"You're not a screw up. You made a mistake, you made a lot of mistakes, but that doesn't make you worthless. Look at me. You are not a screw up, okay? And, even though I ran away before, but that's not going to happen again."

"I know how I get sometimes, and if it had been the other way around I would have left too, but I also know how I feel when I act that way, and when I say I want to be alone…" Everybody lies; even him.

"Okay, I'll try and do better with that, but if I don't do the right thing it odesn't mean I feel any differently.


	24. Denial

"Let him know that you know best  
Cause after all you do know best  
Try to slip past his defense  
Without granting innocence  
Lay down a list of what is wrong  
The things you've told him all along," The Fray

We just lay there for what seems like forever, neither one of us saying much of anything. He's being quiet again, which always worries me, especially right now. He's not talking because he's scared, and I'm not talking because I'm completely out of ideas. I'm not sure what to do. I don't know what to say. I just wish I could help him, make him feel better.

"This sucks," House informs me after a long sigh. Then he says, "I'm not talking about this anymore. Not unless you come up with a plan, okay?"

"If that's what you want, then I guess it's okay. I think you've still got a chance if you were willing to," he stops me.

"No. I'm not—I won't do that. I'd rather talk about—the other thing. That we can at least do something about." He clearly has an idea, so I'll let him finish. "I don't trust you. I don't trust anybody, but I want to trust you. It's just that—I just wish I knew how to make—this is nice. I like what we're doing now. I know you wouldn't hurt me like that, but" his voice trails off.

"But I've walked out on you before, and you think that if you get close to me, if you let yourself trust me, then I'm gonna leave, and this time, I won't come back."

"Or something like that, yeah," he says, and reaches for the pills. "What? Don't give me that look. I hate it when you do that. This is hard enough without you treating me like it's all in my head."

"Look I know my word doesn't mean much of anything right now, but—okay you don't wanna hear that right now, fine," I say, when he gives me the look, again. "No promises. Is there something else I could do to earn your trust?"

"Just stay," he tells me softly. "Even if I—just come by and make sure I don't get too…I don't think anybody would actually, do anything, not now anyway, but if something does happen."

"I'm staying. I pro—I'm staying. I'll do whatever you need, anything at all. If I can, I'll try and anticipate things too, try to pick up on stuff, but I'm not great at this, so might need to ask me…"

"Yeah, okay, but shut up. You talk too much when you get worried or nervous. Usually it's cute, but right now it's annoying as hell."

"Sorry." I want to say more, of course. I want to assure him that I'll stay here with him, hold him, look out for him, and do everything I can. I know he's scared and confused and not just about this thing with Tritter either. I told him that I'm not leaving and I'd like to believe that I'll never screw things up again, but I know how he can get. When House gets angry and depressed he tries to push me away, and he's damn good at it. When I don't say anything else, he turns his had and just watches me for a while.

"Wow, if I knew I could get you to be quiet that easily, I would have told you it would help me trust you the first time we met," he says with a small laugh.

"It wouldn't of worked then. It's only working now because—never mind." I touch his hair softly, and he closes his eyes.

"I'm tired. Can I go to bed or do you have another lecture planned?" he asks, making his way back to the bed and laying down with a long yawn. "It's going to be okay," he tells me, taking a few more pills to help him sleep. "Just you wait and see, everything's gonna be fine." Then he falls asleep, but I know that his thinking this way, is denial and he can't stay there.

Eventually the seriousness of this thing is gonna hit him, and hard. I don't sleep, as usual. I just lay there, watching over him, and thinking. I know he would never listen to me, but if he was to check himself into rehab, then maybe he could prove he's trying to change, and that he feels badly for the things he's done. But like I said, he'll never go for it, which is really too bad because it just might work.

While it wouldn't make up for everything or change the fact that he broke the law, it would help make a good impression on the judge. I wonder if I could talk him into it. I'd have to go about it exactly the right way. I would have to be careful, and do it at the exact right time. I'd have to tiptoe around it, and try to trick him into thinking that it was his idea and not mine. _Yeah right. _Like I could ever trick him into anything.

I cane barely get him to listen when I'm speaking, let alone get House to think he was the one who wanted to go to rehab. He'll never do anything I want him to do. He won't even try to save himself. He had a chance, before and he blew that too. I've already accepted that I'm gonna lose him. Even if he doesn't go to jail, I'm still gonna lose him. House in rehab? What was I thinking? In the morning, he wakes up and looks over at me again.

"Did you stay up all night staring at me again?" he asks, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "It's annoying. You can't keep doing that." I want to say, _yeah well if everything doesn't go exactly the right way; it'll never be a problem again._ I wanna yell and scream at him, get furious, but there's no point. I've already done the anger thing.

"I'm trying to think, and when you're awake I've gotta focus pretty much all of my attention on making you—on you." I stop myself, before he can cut me off. I keep expecting him to yell at me for having given up, but he doesn't.

"This will all blow over. You gotta trust me on this one. Something will—this isn't good is it? I know how bad things are. I know and I don't mean to say anything, except to complain, but I hear the words coming out my mouth, and I can't believe them. I think I'm losing my mind."

"No. It's denial, I know, I know you don't believe in the five stages of grief, but it does happen. I see it enough to know. Why aren't you interrupting me when or calling me a moron?"

"You don't like it when I act like a jerk, and you don't like it when I'm polite. What's a guy supposed to do?"

"I don't like it when you get quiet and bottle up all of your feelings and don't talk to me, especially when I can see how scared you are. This is a big deal. You need to worry about it."

"You better fix this, Jimmy. You'd better find some sort of solution because, this is—your fault," he says in his usual tone of voice, but his voice is faltering. Then a few minutes go by. "That's not true. I can't blame you for this one. It's not your fault."

I know it's too much to hope to hear him admit that it's his fault, but I still want to. If he could say jus once _it's mine, _or _it's all my fault_, then I would know that things might work out. We could fix things if he was willing to take the blame, but I don't think he'll ever do that.


	25. Home

I do believe I am finished but you can tell me if I'm not. Warning spoilers for words and deeds slightly OOC, and I think I can finally forgive Wilson in this story.

"If I could be like that, I would give anything  
Just to live one day, in those shoes.   
If I could be like that, what would I do?" Better Than Ezra

House doesn't say a word when he walks through the door and sees me sitting on his couch. Whether he was expecting me to be here or not, I'll never know for sure, but he doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't bother explaining himself, though. He won't tell me anything. He just steps inside, tosses his coat on the floor, sits next to me and turns on the television. He doesn't talk, not for hours, but he sits right next to me and takes my hand.

He looks about the same as always, tired, angry, pained, somewhat nervous. He just looks like himself. I lift my arm slowly, carefully, with every intention of putting it around his shoulder, but I wait. I wait, because I know how he might react.

"I know you hate it when I fuss over you but you've been—lately things are—we both—I don't even know what to say," I try to tell him how I'm feeling but the words just won't come out. He takes my arm and pulls it roughly down to his shoulder, but still doesn't say anything.

At least now I don't have to worry about him going to prison. At least he can keep his job. At least I can keep an eye on him. At least it's not all over. I know he'll never really change, and frankly I think it was unfair of me to have tried to push him into it. He's been through so much, sometimes I wonder if all my pushing has hurt him more than I've ever helped.

Maybe I should stop trying to fix House. He's not okay, not healthy, not happy, not even comfortable, and that's no way to live, but if it's what he wants, I have to respect his wishes. He's in more pain than I can even imagine. If I can be there for him, it might be enough. That might be best.

I love him. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I really do love him and I know that he loves me. He's said the words, more than once and I know he meant it. I can feel it, the way he looks at me, and because he asked me to stay. If I had been somebody else, if he didn't really care, if he didn't need me, then he wouldn't have cared either way, or he would have pushed me away to prove a point, but House begged me not to leave, and he's never asked that of me or anybody else before.

He needs me. As worried as I am, as much as I think he has a chance to get better, I also know that he is terrified of change. That was my mistake before, trying to force him into it. I wanted to Fix House not for him but to prove that I could.

"I'm sorry," I tell him. I'm just gonna tell him everything. "I've been trying to force you to change because I thought I knew what was best. I figured that if you got help, if you felt better…" House still doesn't talk to me, but he nods, and he looks at me. "Are you feeling okay? Do you need anything?"

His answer comes in the form of him taking a pill bottle out of his pocket and, his taking a handful of Vicodin, even though he knows that isn't even close to what I meant. Then he sighs, and I pull his body closer to mine, kissing him softly and just holding him for a while.

"What I said the other night, I meant it. Everything else might have been fake, and I know how badly I screwed up and how close I came to—but I wasn't lying to you. I just thought you'd like to know that." He stops for a minute, struggling with his thoughts, trying to come up with exactly the right way of phrasing things.

"You don't have to do this, not right now anyway. You just went through hell. Give yourself a day or two—If you need it."

"I'm not doing anything. I was, but now I'm finished. That's sort of a strange thing for you to say, isn't it? You keep on telling me how important it is to deal with my feelings and talk to you and then suddenly you've changed your tune. Do you really expect that little of me?" he asks, lifting his head and looks me directly in the eyes. "That's what I figured.

"What? I didn't even—I didn't say anything. Look, I love you and of course I want you to talk to me. I want more out of this. I want you to be happy and—well—you know what I want, I've told you enough times, but I know now that I can't push you into it unless it's something you want too. I'm sorry it took all of this for me to realize it." House watches me for a while, for about an hour, and then he nods slowly.

"Okay," he says, standing up. Then he starts for the bedroom, and I follow. Later, as we're laying there, he turns and smiles at me. "I love you too you know," he says and then gets quiet again.

"Are you okay?" I ask, watching him carefully. "I know. You hate that question, but I'm just—I don't why but I've just got a strange feeling. I feel like something is wrong but I don't know why."

"You're worried about me. That's what you do. I'm fin—I 'm not fine but I'm no worse than I was before any of this started. I was scared. I thought I was going to jail, and losing my job and—you but I'm back to my old self again. It's not great but, I can…we can…" he sighs and stops.

"Okay, I got it. It's okay. I'm here. You asked me to stay, and that's what I'm doing. Things might never be perfect. I'm not even sure if that exists, but I don't need perfect. I just need you."

House yawns, and says, "I need you too," before falling asleep. And for the firs time, I think we're both gonna be alright, and I smile and I sleep too.


End file.
